Weekend, 16th-17th

My weekend has actually been reasonably productive. Woke up quite early on Saturday and found out the Little Bittern at Stocker's Lake had been seen again. As the site is only 16 miles from my house, I had no reason not to head over. In short, views were alright (but mainly obscured), though certainly not digiscopable during my visit. Wanting to catch the second half of the Wales rugby match, I headed home for around midday - only to hear the boys lose in injury time. Gutted! Three good performances this weekend from the home nations though; the gap is certainly closing between us and the Southern Hemisphere powerhouses.

For the afternoon, I headed over to east London meet up with Rich. Scored his two Egyptian Geese on Greenland Dock en route to his flat, then we were off to Cross Ness. This hybrid Ruddy x Common Shelduck was one of the first birds seen; it's been around a week or so now but this was the first time it has been seen on the south side of the Thames:

Otherwise the visit was dominated (as is often the case) by gull action. I picked up a first-summer Little Gull daintily picking at the water surface off the incinerator outfall, where there were also three first-summer Mediterranean Gulls floating around, each in different stages of moult.

First-summer Little Gull; just a bit of black speckling around the head.

The best of three 2cy Med Gulls.

Heading back towards the car, we picked up four Yellow-legged Gulls on the mudflats (tide way out). Three gorgeous first-summers are portrayed below; it was nice to get my eye back in with this age class after an enjoyable stint back on Peterborough's rubbish dumps last summer.

Same bird in the two shots above. Note how f*cked the coverts are, although the rest of the bird isn't much better. This individual shows off quite nicely how some 1st-s michs can be look almost reminiscent of Great Black-headed Gull - at least in the face - look at those lovely white eyelids, long bill and mask around the eye etc.

A streaky-headed (and generally mucky) 2cy. Presumably from Portugal (emphasis on presumably).

Another mucky bird with a cleaner head, but rather dark 3rd-generation feathers coming through in the mantle, and dark greater covert bar. Look how much that (and the tertials) contrast with the very clean, very white undertail and rump.

This morning, I headed back to the bittern in the hope of improved views in sunnier conditions. The bird was in view for the majority of the time I was there (07:30-10:30 or so), although almost always obscured by reeds. Saw it in flight a few times too today which was nice; it proved pretty mobile and got hacked off with the local Moorhens more than once. Best of a bad bunch of shots below.

Bonaparte's find!

The incinerator outflow at Cross Ness

Last weekend, Rich B found a 2cy Bonaparte's Gull at Cross Ness, London - essentially the first London record of the species. I had a busy week, and didn't get chance to head out east for the bird, so planned to do so this time out.

I met Rich at Canada Water a short while after half 7, and we headed over to Cross Ness straight away. It didn't take long to reach the incinerator outfall, where about 60-70 Black-headed Gulls were feeding. Among them, we quickly located a first-summer Bonaparte's Gull, although the apparent change in appearance from the previous weekend was vast. It had seemingly developed a partial hood in a matter of a few days - Rich had last seen it on Monday, when it still looked wintry. We tentatively 'joked' that it could be a new bird, but realistically assumed it must be the same despite the remarkable change in appearance - why would there be two Boners on the same small stretch of the Thames...?!

Well, it turns out our jokes had substance. Today, Dave Bradnum et al. located a very wintry-looking Bonaparte's just across the river at Barking Bay - the original bird! This meant that, quite sensationally, the more advanced individual we had located at the outfall on Saturday morning was indeed a second bird! In hindsight, it seemed highly unlikely that a bird would be able to moult so rapidly but, as we're talking Nearctic vagrants in East London, the one-bird theory still seemed more realistic at the time. When reviewing photographs, the bird also displayed different tail (possessing moulted central tail feathers) and tertial patterns in addition to the hood.

In other news, an adult Dark-bellied Brent Goose was also seen feeding off the outflow, and there was also a Little Egret and a 2cy Yellow-legged Gull.

Adult Dark-bellied Brent floating around on the Thames

So, two London Bonaparte's for Rich in a week, with the added bonus that it also finds its way on to my self-found list to boot... happy days. More photographs and details on the birds can be found on Rich's blog.