3 Caspians and an Iceland

I went back to Milton a few days later with Mark Thomas.  The gulling was still brilliant - just the four Caspian Gulls this time, but also a juvenile Iceland gull too.  Nice.

I've added some music to this one, mainly to blot out all the swearing...

Out of county gulling

On Monday I had a cracking afternoons gulling in Cambs.  I started off at the tip at Milton and spent two happy hours pouring through the few thousand gulls coming and going.  Top of the pops were up to six Caspian Gulls, with a back up of around ten Yellow-legged Gulls.  I was disappointed not to bag myself a white-winger as up to two juv Glaucs had been seen the previous few days.  At around 3:15 I thought I should give the Grafham roost a go.  I was pushing it get there before it got too dark, but managed to pull up just after 4pm

I started scanning from the fishing lodge and within five minutes I had found a lovely looking adult Glauc not far off shore.  All other hopes of finding more Caspo's drifted in to the darkness as I happily watched my first adult Glauc of a good few years.

The videos above were digiscoped (at great distance!) with a Swarovski ATS 80 HD, 25-50x zoom, and Nikon V1 and kit lens.

Casper the Gypsy

I like a good Caspian Gull.  This was a nice surprise on Gypsy Lane East (Broom GP) this afternoon.  Although we usually have a good autumn gull roost, Caspo's are still pretty rare beasts.  It's only my second Caspian Gull in Beds this year, and the previous year was a blank!

Spot-it!

There are few birds more obvious than a first-winter Caspian Gull in a winter roost! Stewartby Lake, 18th March 2011

Caspian Gull

Second calendar year Caspian Gull, Stewartby Lake, 6th March 2011. Only the second Caspo seen so far this year in Beds.

Tricky blighters

Had this again tonight. This is the same bird from 28th July (see here) - what I presume is a second-summer->third-winter Caspian Gull. However, I don't like its legs. They're a bit too thick and chunky with a short tibia - are they in the range of a Caspian Gull? Everything else on it seems to be about right (but look at those new inner primaries too)...opinions welcome.

Edit - just found an interesting shot on Chris Gibbins' blog of a very similar bird. Its the tenth shot down.

Band of brothers

I thought this was an interesting photo. At the back is the adult Caspian Gull from the other night, in the middle an adult Yellow-legged Gull, and at the back an adult Lesser Black-backed Gull.

All have red (or almost red) orbital rings, with the Yellow-leg having the largest eye of the three, and the Caspian the darkest.

The bills range from very bright in the Yellow-leg to fairly dull in the Lesser Black-back, with the Caspian in the middle.

P10 is also visible on all three, with the Caspian's being the longest and whitest tipped, the Lesser Black-back being in the middle, and the Yellow-legged having the smallest amount of white.

Fascinating.

'cachinn' a caspo

Two Caspian Gulls Larus cachinnans amongst a nice late-summer party of loafing gulls in Beds yesterday. We don't see many of these things in summer, so they are always an education. Interestingly, the most common age we find during July and August is second-summer>third-winter (just like the bottom bird above).

Both birds are moulting their primaries quite heavily, which is a nice pointer towards Caspo this time of year.

The Chameleon Caspian

I spent about two hours watching this bird on the Pillinge at MVCP today. It was amazing to watch its head and body shape change depending on what it was doing. It went from 'classic' Caspian Gull to quite Herring Gull-like fairly quickly. Check out the very top, and very bottom shots to see what I mean. Second-winter Caspian Gull, The Pillinge, MVCP, 21st February 2010.

Ed ticks Caspian shocker!

I thought it might have been a hopeless task this afternoon. I looked at the tip and very few gulls were on it. I then looked at the fields and I could only find a handful of birds. Quest was equally poor, with just a few early-afternoon loafers. Ed's mission to find one of the Caspian Gulls today was looking decidedly dicey!

I met up with him at 2pm and we did the usual circuit - tip, field, pit. It was quiet. We decided to have a look at Broggy and let the gulls assemble prior to roosting. Broggy was full of duck as usual, with up to five Scaup bobbing around in front of the watch point. However, as nice as they are, it wasn't what Ed was after!

We ended up back at the pre-roost pit. A few more birds had drifted in, but nothing that resembled a Caspo. I went through them again, and found this boy paddling in the water - score!

I say 'boy' but its such a demure thing, that I suspect it's probably a female. Que life tick for Ed - Cha-ching!

Looking at photos of the first-winter we had a few weeks ago, it's clear this is a new bird - that makes five individuals in the last three weeks.

Captain Caspian

I spent most of today 'brickpitting'. That is chasing gulls from tip, to field, to pit, and back again. I ended up with two Caspian Gulls - an adult from last week, and this new bird - a 3rd winter.

After complaining about the lack of Caspian's so far this winter, I've now seen four in the last two weeks. November has to be one of the best months to find these chaps in the UK?

Casper the ghost

It's been fairly slim gull pickings recently in the county. After a juv/first-winter Caspian Gull in the Stewartby roost the other week, things went a bit quiet before an adult Caspian was found in the dying rays of light on Friday night by MJP.

Saturday evenings roost was typically poor, with just a single adult Yellow-leg of note. Today I decided to pop in and see the mid-day roost on one of the more 'exclusive' brick pits.

I struck gull-gold! Well, reletively speaking - I found two adult Caspians in a matter of minutes. Both pretty typical birds, but both flew off seperately towards Stewartby before anyone else could get to see them. Below are a few shots.

This is the second bird I found:

And here's the first bird: