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!

Eurotrip

I've just had a most enjoyable weekend on the near-continent in the company of James Shergold and Harry Murphy. Our quarry was a mixed bag of distasteful introduced species and some altogether more appealing Continental specialities. On paper, I guess you'd have to say that the highlight of the weekend was the wintering Wallcreeper in Dinant, Belgium - after a fair old wait, we were treated to some excellent views of this brilliant bird as it alternated between the cliffs and the Palais de Justice. At one point, it even disappeared under the eves for as long as ten minutes before resurfacing! After seeing Wallcreeper at about a mile's range at Les Baux last March, it was great to finally see the species well.

I suppose I shouldn't be admitting to this, but I did get just as much of a buzz out of some of the introduced birds seen over the weekend. Our first stop on Saturday morning was Forêt d'Hesdin, where about a dozen Reeves's Pheasants were seen. Most were females, like this one:

We did see a couple of absolutely glorious males, including this one which briefly posed well for photos before scampering off in to the forest...

With the pheasant and Wallcreeper safely in the bag by mid-afternoon on Saturday, we decided to try a few woodlands in southern Belgium in the hope that we might be able to turf out Middle Spotted Woodpecker. And that we did without too much difficulty thanks to James' sharp eyes - a tick for Harry, as was Short-toed Treecreeper.

A successful first day was capped off with a few beers and fantastic tapas in a hotel near Utrecht. Leaving Harry - a testosterone-fuelled teen - to head off in to the night in search of local Dutch girls, James and I retired to the room for a good night's sleep - very much needed after a long day. Fortunately Harry returned in one piece, and was even up for our early start. Heading over to the east side of Utrecht, we met up with Thierry Jansen and friend who kindly showed us to a Black Woodpecker territory. It didn't take long before we were treated to good views of a male set to the backdrop of overflying White-fronted Geese and singing Woodlarks. Not a bad start to the day!

After this it was a case of 'eyes on the prize' as we re-focussed on two introduced species - Bar-headed Goose and Black Swan. The former was easily encountered near Culemborg while a pair of the latter were seen not far from Vianen, a third swan later seen in fields near Strijen.

Fortunately these were interspersed with more recognisable quality - namely a flock of Lesser White-fronted and many hundreds (thousands) of both European White-fronted and Barnacle Geese, plus Goshawk, Merlin, Med Gulls, Hawfinches and plenty more besides.

After dipping the Long-legged Buzzard at Maasvlakte we began the long drive south, calling in for these boys on the way - the less said about them, the better.

And so that rounded off a fine weekend on the European mainland. It was an excellent reminder of how much better birding can be just across the Channel and, even with the Cat Cs now safely planted on my Western Palearctic list, I'd happily return and do it all again. Very much cheap and cheerful, with some great birds to boot. It's my intention to produce a fuller trip report with GPS for some of the more interesting species (Reeves's, woodpeckers etc) in the coming weeks, so watch out for that.

Grey-headed Gull, round two

One of the first shots of Sunday, taken very early in the low light and drizzle

The light might not have been particularly good throughout Sunday (it remained overcast with occasional bit of rain throughout the day) but the Grey-headed Gull certainly performed well. So well, in fact, that it far exceeded all expectations and provided a memorable day for myself, Rich Bonser and Mick Southcott (who'd arrived on Saturday evening),

Mick's 'Dungeness tactics' paid dividends as the bird, along with the local Black-headed and Mediterranean Gulls, became ever tamer as the day wore on. We won their trust with a combination of several loaves of bread, popcorn and salami and the result was phenomenal and prolonged views of this African vagrant to within a range of a metre. A few of my favourite shots are shared below, with plenty more on Flickr.

We also had an adult Caspian Gull in the harbour at Bisceglie with two second-winter birds seen at nearby Molfetta harbour. And, with that, it was time to head back to Bari airport for our evening flight back to London. Not a bad way to spend a weekend!

Fifty Shades of Grey

I spent the weekend around the relatively unspectacular Italian town of Bisceglie, where my quarry was the wintering Grey-headed Gull first found nearby in November 2012. The trip proved an overall success, with the two days differing quite considerably in both weather and views of the bird. I've only managed to have a look through Saturday's images so far, some of which are displayed below.

Saturday was glorious - 18 celsius and unbroken winter sunshine resulted in a rather red face! Having flown out the previous evening with Gordon Beck, Ernie Davis and Gary Fennemore, we spent the day at the small freshwater outflow a couple of km to the south of the town where several birders had connected in recent weeks. The bird's appearances here had been somewhat unpredictable - one French birder had waited three days while others had scored within an hour of daybreak on their first morning. As it turned out we struck a happy medium - five hours in and the bird noisily announced itself shortly after mid-day, arriving at the mouth of the outflow from the north-west and proceeding to preen and bathe at a range of around 40 metres.

Grey-headed Gull on the water with its Black-headed brethren

Naturally I introduced a bit of bread and the bird immediately played ball, giving several vocal fly-pasts allowing for a few flight shots to be taken. The bird then spent an hour or so roosting on the far side of the channel before flying off north-west again at around 13:30. Save for a couple of shots of it on the water, all my photos from Saturday are of the bird in flight.

Other birds included one or two Black-necked Grebes offshore, a handful of Sardinian Warblers and Zitting Cisticolas, a pair of Black Redstarts, a noisy flock of ten Monk Parakeets and a Hoopoe.

The real excitement of the day was a speculative check of the town harbour itself late in the afternoon, where we found the Grey-headed roosting on a pontoon among the Black-heads. Immediate suspicions were that this must be where the bird spends at least a significant majority of its time - something that proved to be the case the following morning...