April arrives - yet I'm still looking at gulls

I managed to get out a fair bit over the weekend and logged a few migrants, but once again it was the gulls that provided the bulk of the entertainment. A leisurely walk around Chiswick House & Gardens on Saturday morning produced a Nuthatch and my first Swallow of the year zipping over, as well as the usuals. I've recently bought the Canon 100-400 ii zoom, and I must say image stabilisation has changed my life - my hands aren't very steady and I was amazed at how good the IS is at minimising my wobble! It seems pretty sharp too.

Mistle Thrush, Chiswick, 1 April 2017

The river produced the usual assortment of gulls as well as four Shelducks along the Fulham stretch and a Meadow Pipit over. A mid-afternoon visit to London Wetland Centre failed to produced G0UT (which had been seen in the morning) but a white-winged gull was picked up in flight at 15:30. It was distant and high up, but I managed to get it in the scope and confirm it was the Iceland rather than the regular Glaucous Gull that has been knocking around. The Iceland had been seen here again on Thursday and was presumably making the most of the warm conditions of Saturday to drift around West London after having been seen at Beddington that morning.

Juvenile Iceland Gull over London Wetland Centre, 1 April 2017

One each of Fieldfare and Redwing were the highlights of another early traipse around Chiswick House on Sunday morning, although it was clear that there had been an increase in singing Blackcaps overnight - in fact that species seemed to be very common everywhere on Sunday.

After brunch I saw a BirdGuides message that the Glaucous was back at the WWT for the first time since Thursday, so I cycled down there and finally enjoyed prolonged views of this bird - my second local white-winged gull in as many days. The sharp contrast between the pale head/upper neck and darker body seems to suggest that it is Beddington bird #2 (see Pete's blog). I wonder why it's suddenly decided to change its behaviour and spend most of its time around the river?

Juvenile Glaucous Gull, London Wetland Centre, 2 April 2017

In the afternoon I went to watch the boat race with my housemates, only for the Glauc to come steaming up the Thames by the Old Ship pub at 16:45 in hot pursuit of the women's event - my third sighting of this monster in a week. And then, on Monday morning, it was back at the WWT, performing well but generally being lazy - seems hard to avoid it at present. Who'd have thought white-winged gulls would routinely figure among my early-spring birding highlights in West London? Not me!

From white to black ... I was almost as excited by this Rook, which flew over the WWT at 10:15 on Monday morning. For those living outside the capital, seeing a Rook inside Zone 4 (i.e. Central London and the 'inner' suburbs) is a genuine challenge, and you have to hope for the occasional flyover like this. Needless to say it was a first for me here.

Mega! Rook over London Wetland Centre, 3 April 2017

Early spring promise

The mild conditions of recent days have generated a rush of summer migrants, many of which are arriving days (even weeks) earlier than usual.

I had my first Chiffchaff of the year singing at Lonsdale Road Reservoir, Barnes, at sunrise on Friday morning - this quickly followed by the regular 2cy Caspian Gull frequenting the playing fields at Dukes Meadows. I still look at this bird sometimes and shudder a bit, as structurally I think it looks quite Herring-like at times. I guess it's probably from Germany.

It looks fine here, but sometimes this bird takes on an appearance quite unremarkable for cachinnans. I've never seen/heard it calling.

Plenty of gulls have been on the move in recent days - the warm conditions of Saturday and Monday in particular were good for observing visible migration, with Black-heads almost streaming east at times. Not a single bloody Med Gull, though. The wait for one on my patch goes on. A few gull rings included the usual NTGG birds, red-ringed 2cy Herring 'J+H' from Peter Rock's scheme in Bristol, yellow-ringed 3cy Herring 'Y.161' (from Rufforth, N Yorks), and the following two:

 Adult Lesser Black-backed Gull white 'A8CF', Fulham, 11 March 2017 - from Sussex but awaiting details on when it was ringed

3cy Common Gull green 'J88Z', Chiswick, 12 March 2017 

Ringed as a 1cy female at Stavanger, Norway, on 16.11.15 and still in the city environs in Feb 2016, this is the first sighting of it since (and the first away from SW Norway)

There have also been up to three 2cy Yellow-legged Gulls knocking about recently, all familiar birds from recent weeks, but no new Caspian Gulls in recent days.

2cy Yellow-legged Gull, Fulham, 11 March 2017. I first saw this bird at Beddington on 3 March.

Sunday was a real red-letter day. Murky conditions produced a fall of early-spring migrants at the WWT including a pristine pair of Garganey, a Sand Martin, three singing Chiffchaffs and a smart male Northern Wheatear. Meadow Pipit was notable, too. On a sunnier Monday, I had a Common Sandpiper on the river at Fulham.

A familiar Yellow-legged Gull and hints of spring

It felt almost springlike out of the wind today, and fittingly I saw my first butterfly of the year - a Red Admiral hurriedly commuting between riverside gardens adjacent to Chiswick Eyot. Poor thing must've been chilly.

With cloudless skies and temperatures having recovered somewhat from the weekend, it felt like a decent day to be looking skyward and so it proved. A Common Buzzard headed south over London Wetland Centre at height at 11:49 and a little later, a Red Kite drifted low west over the Thames and then the Harrods Furniture Depository at 12:06. Both new species for the year, the latter the first I've seen here.

Common Buzzard high over the wetland centre ...

... and a somewhat lower Red Kite

Personal highlight of the morning was a striking 2cy Yellow-legged Gull. This bird, with its extremely distinctive aberrant bill pattern, was first seen by Rich Bonser by the O2 Arena on 17 August 2016 and then intermittently either there or at nearby Thames Barrier Park until 23 December (and again on 11 February per Dante Shepherd). See Rich's photos here. This is, to the best of my knowledge, the first time it's been seen away from East London.

I finished the day at Chiswick Pier, feeding a legion of Black-headed Gulls. They recognise me and my bike now - as soon as they see me pull up they come in and wait for me to get the bread out my bag. It's nice to see a lot of them are now acquiring their hoods. Another encouraging sign that the long, happy days of spring and summer aren't far away.

In addition to the gulls, this Egyptian Goose was grateful for my offerings.

Spring 2014 summary

An utter lack of posts on this blog is largely down to a total lack of time; it seems having an SLR means that you spend most of your free time processing photos and writing a blog post too has been beyond me in such a hectic spring. I've actually been working on my Flickr portfolio, which you can visit at https://www.flickr.com/jrmjones/.

April and May weren't exactly busy for me on the bird front; I visited Southern France at the end of March for a weekend with Dan Pointon and collected Citril Finch, a distant Wallcreeper and, erm, Fischer's Lovebird for WP tally. Easter weekend was again spent with Dan (and his dad), this time in Corsica where we had a truly wonderful four days. Great views of both the nuthatch and finch were afforded and there were some great orchids too, not to mention the scenery and food. What a beautiful place!

  Corsican Nuthatch

Tongue Orchid

I was fortunate enough to get a new car in early May and that's naturally helped to mobilise me considerably. As such, lots more trips during the month - mainly for orchids and butterflies:

Grizzled Skipper

Fly Orchid

 Pearl-bordered Fritillary

 Burnt-tip Orchid

But also a few birds too, like the Dotterels on Pendle Hill in Lancashire. Having these things running around you feeding and interacting, utterly unconcerned, was a genuinely astounding experience and I'll be sure to go back next year.

About as good as it gets ...

So, that is a whistlestop summary of my spring. Not really done it justice, but check out my Flickr page for plenty more images. I've yet to get round to uploading all the Corsica images, but that'll be my first task on return from Russia - another reason I've not had time to do anything to this blog, organising the trip there has been a bit hectic..! We're off to the Ural Mountains for a couple of weeks, primarily bird-related but with the outside chance of some interesting mammals too (Brown Bear, Siberian Weasel etc). We may also have the chance to do some pioneering stuff down towards Kazakhstan. Watch this space, I hope!