Month: March 2026

The third day in a row of moderate North Easterly winds, at this time of year means Chaffinch movement here. Numbers built each day with 790 on the 19th, 1,085 on the 20th and 1,880 today. Ive missed ‘big Chaffinch days’ (with c10,000 birds moving for example) in previous years and personally havent’ got past 4,000 but todays movement was still impressive, with groups of 30-70 birds moving fairly low in a North Easterly direction some dropping below the cliffs over the harbour and coming over head as I stood on the Eastern side of Langdon hole, the extra height of this site does seem to give it a special advantage with counting this species in early spring and it is an event I look forward to each year.

5 Brambling, 10 Greenfinches a House sparrow also counted, sub 10 numbers of these species most days this week and a Crossbill on the 19th was noted.

Despite updates to this blog being reduced so far this year, I have actually been out looking regularly. No wheatear so far but a Swallow along the cliff tops on the 20th was my first trans-Saharan migrant of the year. White Wagtails have occured in 1s and 2s most days since the first few days of March, in of the sea mainly or in a ploughed field on Reach road and Rock pipits moving slightly inland suggest migrants to me.

Red Kites have been pushed against the coast to in recent days with 5 on the 20th, Jason M had a Black Kite over the valley on this day, a species that still eludes me locally!

A Black redstart on the 19th was still present today, (numbers should pick up soon) Chiffchaffs and Firecrests are dotted around and 2 singing blackcaps were noted as I climbed the cliff path this morning.

Today I fly to Hong Kong for almost 2 weeks work, Its a fantastic work trip for birding opportunities so I am looking forward to that, back up the cliffs in early April.

With white winged gulls being so scarce this winter/these days generally I was surprised to pick up this Iceland-type along the cliff tops at light house down y’day. Quickly aware from the dark markings throughout the primaries that it was infact a bird photographed early last month (my apologies I dont know who by) in North Kent and ID’d as a Kumlien’s gull by Rich Bonser. I’d originally had some reservations about this ID from the safety of my armchair due to the nature of said markings and particularly in 2nd winter birds. To me it seemed that the inner primary markings were equally as dark as the outers and the primary coverts were actually darker still, literature suggests that these features are OK for nominate glaucoides, whereas kumlieni should show, among other things, clearly darker outer webs to the outer primaries which are themselves darker than inners.

I wondered if the nature of the markings across the entire flight feathers and primary coverts (which cross into the inner webs) was actually general brown ‘smudging’ reminiscent of darker Iceland gulls rather than the ghost of a future Kumlien’s Gull type primary pattern.

Back to the cliff top situation – the bird was circling with a group of gulls, presumably turfed off a roost with the rising tide, so some quite nice views were afforded and I got the following photos which do add detail to the ones gathered last month, these perhaps show that the outer most primaries are in fact a little darker than the inners along with the light tail band and darker iris hasten me to join the Kumlien’s camp despite votes for both glaucoides and kumlieni from esteemed gulling colleagues. The topic is somewhat subjective plus this age especially I do find tricky, and with the species group in general situated in a grey area can one really be certain? and do we even need to be!? Beautiful bird.

Thanks to Rich B, Mars M, Josh J, Bruce M and Dave C for input.

Click here for an excellent post on Gullresearch.org, a particularly pertinent link tracking the year by year progress of a returning Dutch Kumlien’s Gull throughout all ages .

Another link to a dark Iceland , and a reason to be wary

Last link to ponder on.