Ringed Black-headed Gulls on the Thames

Here are a few ringed Black-headed Gulls that I had on the Thames last week ...

1) Adult yellow ' 2PJB', Barnes, 5 December. Ringed at Pitsea, Essex, in March 2016. More details here.

2) Adult white 'EE5T', Fulham, 5 December 2016. Ringed as an adult at Griend, Netherlands, on 6 June 2016. First recorded in the UK at Hyde Park, London, on 19 October before my sighting in Fulham.

3) Adult metal 'HV11.766' ringed as pullus at lake (55.1192, 23.7542) north of Kaunas, Lithuania, on 18 June 2011. Not recorded subsequently until in Chiswick on 2 December 2016!

Gulling in Chiswick

After my walk along the Thames in Chiswick today, I'm slightly embarrassed that I've never bothered to look at gulls here in the summer months before. There are never that many large gulls full stop (normally just a few tens) but, inspired by Rich Bonser's ability to pick up regular michahellis and even the very occasional cachinnans among similarly small numbers on the Thames near his Rotherhithe flat, I decided it was worth a shot today. All I can say is I can't believe I hadn't tried before!

While hardly ground-breaking stuff, I was pretty chuffed with two Yellow-legged Gulls among 60-70 large gulls on the Thames between the Fuller's brewery and the Black Lion pub, a few hundred metres to the east. In fact, I had my first  - a second-summer - within moments of arriving.

Second-summer Yellow-legged Gull, Chiswick, 29 July 2016

Unfortunately it didn't come in to the near-whole loaf of bread I lobbed out, although there was a nice selection of fresh juvenile Herring and Lesser Black-backed Gulls to admire among the c.25 large gulls that joined the melee.

Walking west up to the brewery revealed about 40 further large gulls loafing just west of Chiswick Eyot, including a couple of adult Great Black-backed Gulls. Here I found a juvenile Yellow-legged Gull, which went on to show considerable interest in my bread and showed really well. Sadly I only had a couple of slices left so didn't have much time with it cruising around my head, but I intend to reload on the bread front and head back down at low tide early tomorrow morning.

Juvenile Yellow-legged Gull, Chiswick, 29 July 2016

So a great way to spend to an otherwise sleepy Friday. Suddenly, birding in Chiswick actually seems quite appealing! The only drawback to the gulls here, which give great views, is that you're viewing from the north bank of the river - so on a bright day, light will inevitably be a bit crap. But it's otherwise great - and with Common Terns drifting past, Little Egrets fishing and the usual array of Egyptian Geese to keep you entertained, it's not all that bad for Central London.

The next generation :-)

Juvenile Yellow-legged Gulls

Three juvenile Yellow-legged Gulls at Greenwich were a nice reintroduction to gulling after a spring and summer off.

London's early summer celebrity

Rich went to check out a female Long-tailed Duck a couple of Sundays ago when it first turned up on a small park lake, festering with McDonald's wrappers and various other bits of everyday urban detritus, in the middle of Peckham. By the time I got round to twitching it on the Tuesday it had disappeared, only to turn up again on James L's patch in Greenwich Park on the Friday. Rich had been livid that the duck had overflown his patch in Rotherhithe but, while slightly intoxicated in Manchester on Saturday afternoon, I received a call from him and instantly recognised the urgency in his tone. My heart sank. "Bollocks", I cursed, "this is going to be mega".

But no, thankfully not. It transpired that the duck had relocated to Canada Water, an empty Coke can's throw from Rich's flat. Here it has since remained to the time of writing [13th], showing extremely well at times but often diving around in the middle of the lake. I managed to fit in half an hour or so with the bird on Tuesday evening prior to my football game, though it primarily remained distant aside for a brief period when it unwittingly floated in to the margins as it preened. Sadly it didn't seem fond of the cheap white baps I'd brought along and, with light pretty poor, my shots aren't great. Needless to say, Jono Lethbridge has some considerably more appealing images.

Hopefully London's latest summer hit will hang around a few weeks longer. If it does, I'll be sure to head back down in proper light, armed with some hearty seed-filled goodness.

Green-winged Teal etc

Finally got out and did some London birding on an initially frosty morning that soon turned in to a glorious spring day (not warm, just mild). First up in the paddocks for Rich and I were a group of at least 15 Wheatears - 21 had been seen the evening previous:

On route back to the riverside footpath, a couple of Yellow Wags flew over and a female Redstart showed reasonably well for a minute or two before vanishing. On the Thames itself, Rich's Green-winged Teal eventually showed really well - perhaps 40m or so, wish I had a bigger lens sometimes. If you got the light right on this bird, I reckon really good shots could be possible with a bit of luck and patience.

Finished off late morning on Rich's patch at Rotherhithe, taking in Russia Dock Woodland. There were several Willow Warblers (some in flutey subsong) but no hoped-for Redstart/Pied Fly/Wood Warbler. Nice bit of scrub though - must get some good passers from time to time. Thanks to Rich for the lift as always.

Bearded Tits in Hyde Park

Yesterday, I took advantage of the morning off work and what seemed like the first blue skies for an age to visit Hyde Park, where Inner London's first Bearded Tits had been present for a few days. I knew they'd been showing well, but wasn't prepared for quite how well that meant! Spent an enjoyable couple of hours getting used to my new SLR and lens in a range of lighting conditions from quite overcast to bright sunlight. I'm quite pleased with the results; it's interesting to see how the conditions affected the colour of the images.

You can click on any of the below to make them in to frame-fillers.

More on Azorean Gulls, I'm afraid

Went back to Rainham yesterday morning. Not as many birds around as on my two previous visits, so could only manage around 25 Yellow-legged Gulls (no Casps). After a few hours of seeing relatively little, I flirted with the idea of heading back home to bed but, on my final scan of the Thames, I spotted the Azorean-type floating aimlessly upriver towards me.

Over the next couple of hours, I only had reasonable views of it on the river and over my head as it flew back towards the tip; it proved frustratingly difficult to locate on the landfill itself, only on view for a minute or two at the most! Here are some shots, including comparisons with both Herring and Lesser Black-backed.

Quite interesting to see how it has changed in appearance. The dark subterminal markings on the bill have intensified in the onset of winter plumage, and the amount head streaking has also increased. The secondaries and tail are in heavy moult; note how the outer tail feathers (that had quite a lot of black left in them back on 21st) have been dropped, leaving a rather messing looking beast. The immature underwing coverts have also been moulted through to white, adult-like feathers since 21st.

It looks pretty decent. Moult timing seems spot on. Primaries look fine. But something just bugs me, and as such I'm still unconvinced. I'd like to see it out of the water for longer and at closer range to get a real feel for structure and jizz though.

To compare moult/plumage, here are a couple of photographs of 'real' Azorean Gulls, taken in the archipelago this week by Rich Bonser. The similarities in moult of the tail and secondaries is striking.

Genuine Azorean Gull influx?

On Sunday, three possible Azorean Gulls were reported in County Cork - at Clonakilty, Rosscarbery and Ballycotton. The first two (a near-adult and a somewhat retarded 3cy) were photographed:

http://www.irishbirding.com/birds/web/Display/sighting/47823/Yellowlegged_Gull.html
http://www.irishbirding.com/birds/web/Display/sighting/47822/Yellowlegged_Gull.html

This adds a fascinating twist to the story of Azorean Gull in Britain and Ireland. Perhaps these streaky-headed, dark-mantled gulls are atlantis after all? Although not worth jumping to any conclusions just yet, it must be noted that we've been subject to a series of trans-atlantic weather systems since the first around 16th August - indeed, the gales that affected much of southwest Britain and Ireland during that first system stemmed right from the Azorean archipelago. Worth thinking about, at least. For good measure, here are a dew more shots of the bird I had at Rainham last Tuesday:

Azorean Gull at Rainham?

During the four hours I spent at Rainham on Tuesday, I had two birds which, for all intents and purposes, may be hybrids. The first bird, an adult, was the less interesting of the two, and was what I would call a likely Lesser Black-backed x Herring Gull, similar to this bird photographed by Dominic Mitchell in late 2011 (could it perhaps even be the same?).

Adult gull, presumed hybrid Lesser Black-backed x Herring.

The second is a 3cy bird, moulting in to a third-winter plumage. Age aside, it looks remarkably like some of these claimed Azorean Gulls of recent autumn/winters (Oxon, Beds) - mantle colouration at the dark end of Yellow-legged Gull, but also too pale for Lesser Black-backed. Structurally, it felt like a Yellow-legged Gull - big and robust, long-winged, with nice and long yellowish legs. Fascinatingly, it had a broad and full black tail band, with some barring left on the uppertail - again, only just visible in the images but nevertheless significantly more than one would expect to see on a michahellis of this age. The retained secondaries (only just visible in the photos) were a dark chocolate brown, and there was also a brownish wash to some of the new lesser/median coverts. A retained tertial (maybe two, I couldn't see) was dark chocolate-brown with some pale scalloping limited to the tip.

I couldn't make out the eyering colour, but reviewing photos it appears to have some reddish tinge to it at least (although atlantis at this age don't necessarily show an obvious red eyering at this age). The iris is a very pale yellow. The head streaking is dense, creating a hooded effect. I was initially put off by how this streaking extends down the nape/neck, although looking at photos shows that this is not a problem in atlantis at this age - had it been an adult, that might have been different.

NB: have been looking at the primary pattern as closely as my (poor) images will allow; the one thing that concerns me is the pattern on p5 - see eighth photo down - although the black band is complete, it does not seem as broad as in the adults that I've seen shots of in flight. However, it looks pretty similar to the Oxfordshire adult of 2009. There also seems to be a hint of black in the outer web of p4. Unfortunately it doesn't help that the bird is in active moult and the primaries just seem to be all over the place. UPDATE: p5 doesn't seem to be out of range.

I've always been pretty sceptical about Azorean Gulls occurring in Britain - at least in the Midlands - and typically opt for the lazy hybrid option. But this bird has fuelled my interests further - this thing looks almost identical to some of the birds I saw on Corvo last October, as well as sharing plenty of similarities this thing photographed on Sao Miguel in September. It's not far off this bird from Terceira, either.

So, what now? Well, apart from muting it as a candidate Azorean Gull, I don't think you can go much further. It would be great to see photos of known hybrids (Herring x LBB or Yellow-legged x LBB), but they seem difficult to come across. All you can say is this bird shares a lot of features with Azorean Gulls of a similar age. However, it would take a braver man than me to totally rule out the possibility of a hybrid of some description.