More gulls, I'm afraid

Unless I go to the wetland centre, the mid-summer period totally lacks in decent birding opportunities in West London. Apart from the gulls, of course.

The first juvenile Yellow-legged Gulls have started to appear. Each session on 'my' stretch of the Thames between Craven Cottage, Fulham, and Chiswick Pier produces up to five michahellis, usually always involving a different selection of birds. I've had at least three different juveniles over the past couple of weeks, although most of the birds seen have been 2cy and 3cy, with the one or two older birds thrown in for good measure.

Juvenile Yellow-legged Gull, Fulham, 23 July 2017

2cy Herring (left) and 2cy Yellow-legged Gulls, Fulham, 23 July 2017

You don't really expect to see Caspian Gulls in July but I've been fortunate enough to be blessed with two scraggy first-summers on the river near me over the past two weeks. The first was a bird I've not seen before, German-ringed 'X307' - this bird having been noted regularly in East London since it was first seen by Jamie Partridge at Thames Barrier Park on 25 September 2016 (here are a couple of nice photos of it taken by Rich in March). It's from a mixed (predominately Caspian) colony on the Polish border but to me this bird doesn't obviously stand out as a bird of mixed heritage, I thought it looked fine as a first-winter and still think the same looking at it now.

2cy Caspian Gull 'X307', Fulham, 21 July 2017

The second bird, first seen just two days after X307's appearance, was a more familiar face - 'G0UT', a Thames-ringed Casp that first visited this stretch of the Thames back in late March, a few days after it was ringed at Pitsea. Here are a few pics of it from back then. I'd say this one is a bit less impressive than X307, showing a few more hints that Herring Gull might be mixed in somewhere down the line. A few images from recent visits below, it seems pretty regular at the moment so here's hoping it hangs around here for a while.

 23 July

31 July

And a few bits of 'interest':

4cy Herring x Lesser Black-backed Gull, 29 July

Juvenile Great Black-backed Gull, 29 July. This species must breed somewhere along this stretch of the Thames - I see at least one pair of adults throughout the year and two youngsters present last week were very fresh. There are usually a few immatures hanging around as well.

Yellow-legged Gulls are back!

With a handful of lingering immatures mincing around throughout the spring and early summer, I guess it's fair to say that Yellow-legged Gulls have never actually left London. However, the annual mid-summer build-up of michahellis is now well underway and my first visit to the Thames for a couple of months revealed a handful of these entertaining birds. Curiously, none were juveniles - in fact most were 3cy.

Black-headed Gulls are also coming back in numbers - no Med yet though.

And, as always, it's worth keeping an eye out for rings. Here's a North Thames Gull Group bird that I'd not seen before.

Caspian Tern on my old patch

Mike Weedon scored heavily with an adult Caspian Tern at Baston & Langtoft Pits, my old stomping ground during my teenage years. Though a regular vagrant to Britain, it's an undeniably impressive species and, with a clear afternoon on the cards, I couldn't resist twitching it.

By the time I arrived it had been missing for the best part of 45 minutes but, after a nervous wait, was picked up fishing over some of the more mature pits in the middle of the (private) complex. Views were initially distant but it then had the decency to perform a close fly-by as it headed back to its favoured roosting spot on the new wader scrape on the north side of the pits - this fantastic site has been producing great birds for a couple of years now, and finally it's had its first true rarity.

Incidentally the bird bears a red ring, identifying it as the individual seen previously in Carmarthenshire and Northamptonshire. The red ring seems to suggest it's Swedish, though I'm not sure if anyone has managed to read the ring fully yet. It'll be interesting to see where it pops up next, assuming it doesn't hang around at BLGP.

A few grab shots below - hurriedly taken using sub-optimal settings and against a grey sky, and not really in focus. But you can tell what it is!

On the wrong side of the planet ...

Time is not really on my side at the moment due to various ongoing work commitments (the fruits of which should be available to see soon at birdguides.com), but here are a few record shots of the Grey-tailed Tattler that I was fortunate enough to come across in the famous quarry at Cabo da Praia, Terceira, Azores, while leading a tour there last Friday. Unfortunately we only had an hour in the strong mid-afternoon sunshine to watch this East Asian vagrant before our early-evening flight back to São Miguel. This represents the first for the Azores and Portugal as well as being just the fifth for the Western Palearctic.

As and when time allows I hope to feed back a bit more on recent trips to Taiwan and Colombia, as well as the Azores tour.

Grey-tailed Tattler, Cabo da Praia, 7 July 2017

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 :-)

First shot at His Majesty

My UK butterfly list is still riddled with gaps that need plugging, and until Tuesday the celebrated Purple Emperor was one of those. Fondly dubbed His Majesty, it is one of the largest and most spectacular of our resident butterflies. It also exhibits some unusual habits - though spending most of its life in the trees, males regularly descend to ground level to extract nutrients from, ideally, faeces or a rotting corpse (though the ground will do if neither are available).

It's not a rare butterfly, at least in the south of England - it is found quite widely in deciduous forests - but can be quite tricky to see well. However, when the males descend to earth they can be delightfully confiding, calmly feeding for minutes on end and allowing thrilled observers to approach to within inches.

My visit to Fermyn Woods on Tuesday morning came during a limited window of opportunity, and I was banking on at least some sunshine. The forecast had changed repeatedly over the previous few days and it really felt like a lottery as to whether the sun would come out - as it transpired, there was only a 20-minute spell of sunshine during which I didn't see any Apatura iris.

For the rest of the morning it remained frustratingly dull and cool, the conditions evidently having an effect on iris - Fermyn is arguably the best site in the country, often producing huge counts of over 50. I was struggling to see one - a couple of brief glimpses flitting around the treetops, but little more. At least there were plenty of commoner species on the wing - particularly Green-veined Whites and Ringlets - and I also had singles of White Admiral and Purple Hairstreak.

Eventually a Purple Emperor decided that it could resist the lure of the main track no more, descending to land by my feet and presently beginning to extract whatever nutrients it could from the ground. The cool conditions meant His Majesty kept his wings firmly shut, and I had to settle for a selection of underwing shots and close-ups. I hope to try the species again this summer but the forecast continues to look underwhelming (and sun-less!) - let's see how it pans out.

More orchids

Since returning from Russia, my birding has been limited to the Great Knot twitch and the odd bits and bobs seen while on forays for non-avian targets - results have not really advanced much beyond the odd Yellow-legged Gull and Spoonbill.

Flowers, on the other hand, continue to be a source of inspiration for excursions in what has been a very pleasantly warm and settled July so far. That said, the morning I traipsed round Holkham looking for Creeping Lady's-tresses was frankly miserable - damp, dreary and definitely depressing, at least until I stumbled upon my quarry. Which were fantastic!

Creeping Lady's-tresses: most just opening up, but this one already looking great

This week on what was a very warm Monday, I popped down to a Surrey reserve not too far from me for Narrow-lipped Helleborine, another news species for my burgeoning 'orchid list' (if I kept such a thing). Given it's a small site and many of the orchids are caged, it didn't take long to locate them. This species is about the only thing going in the darkness of the beechwood understory, and photographing them in low light is actually quite difficult with such slow shutter speeds on the macro lens - especially if there's a light breeze blowing the plants about, as there was that morning. As such I improvised by using the torch on my iPhone to illuminate the plants, naturally giving better lighting and improved shutter speed.

Narrow-lipped Helleborine in all its glory

In an open area nearby, Broad-leaved Helleborines were looking spectacular - not quite at their best (which will come in the next week or so), but impressive nonetheless. Many were approaching peak condition and a number of the plants were impressively altitudinous; one particularly regal and imposing specimen must have been at least a metre tall.

Broad-leaved Helleborine in fine fettle

It's getting towards the end of the orchid season now but I've had some most enjoyable mornings out this spring and summer, visiting many sites I'd not been previously (and would probably never visit anyway). With plenty more targets for next year (plus some species revisited, no doubt), there's still no shortage of stuff to go at.

More images at my Flickr page: flickr.com/jrmjones

Morocco Trip Report, June/July 2012

You can view and download my Morocco trip report at your will below:



Apologies for the mix-up last night; I've moved the PDF to scribd which seems to solve the problem. Hope it comes in handy to others on future visits!