Author: Jamie Partridge

Another short work trip, this time to Bilbao. Id never been to the Basque country and was surprised how familiar the climate felt at this time of year, It was damp and windy and some of the near coast line resembled parts of Cornwall and the South West. The first morning I had off was spent at the coast near Sopela, 35 mins from Bilbao via Metro. initally Low cloud, a light northerly wind and lots of birds moving. Rough estimates of 10k Chaffinch, 1k+ of Song Thrush and Skylark, few hundred Redwing, similar numbers of meadow pipit, a Ring Ouzel, a few tree pipits and a surprise Richards Pipit! This bird flushed from grass 10 metres away on the headland, called a good few times and flew, quite far inland, I didn’t see where it landed and despite searching suitable habitat for 2 hours after the bird wasn’t seen again. I intially assumed that would be a good bird for the area but after doing abit of asking around I received this info from Daniel Lopez Velasco “Richard’s Pipit is a regular passage migrant and wintering bird in Northern Spain, about 100 birds or so each year.” Still was a nice satisfying event.

The Headland and surrounding area was teaming with things like Dartford, Sardinian and Fan–tailed Warblers…

An area of pine forest held Crested tits, Short–toed treecreeper, whilst the suburban streets and unfinished building sites were good for Serins, many Black redstart of course and Cirl Buntings which I really enjoyed. I wasnt able to get any gen for anything in particular so just looked on google earth for suitable looking areas. I often end up birding in these kind of quiet half finshed places when im abroad, quite like them.

Back on the metro and on to the next town: Plentzia. A quiet, affluent ,coastal town where I could see a harbour and was hoping to look at Gulls. Its apparent that most if not all the gulls here were ‘Lusitanius‘ Yellow Legged Gulls. They’re supposed to be smaller, Paler and behind in terms of moult.  Varying degrees of delayed moult was present in pretty much all the birds I saw, take this completly juvenile bird in October! If im honest It was a real eye opener.

The first winter birds are paler and much warmer toned, resembling some Herring Gulls. Overall I’d say more buff/grey/brown/dark brown than white/grey/brown/black

A failry standard looking first winter below, but with a noticeably delicate scapular pattern that these birds seem to be prone to.

A second winter without any adult grey toned Scapulars.

Paler toned adult Grey scapulars, this bird could easily go down as a Herring gull with brief views in the UK, the structure and head was spot on for YLG however.

A more standard 2nd winter in terms of moult advance, was ringed on a small island off the coast NW of Bilbao. I ‘ve written to the scheme asking for info about birds travelling north in late summer and waiting for a reply.

Not a bad trip really.

My fourth consecutive autumn Scillies, with the Roseveer gang: Laurence Pitcher, Lee Amery, Graham Gordon and ex-pat Paul Cook. A real comparison to the high of last year . The Scillonian crossing wasnt too bad at all with one or two Great Shearwater a few Sooty Shearwaters, Pomarine Skua and a Grey Phalerope the highlights. LP and I had a look at the tame and beautiful Ortolan Bunting around Penninis head on st Mary’s before missing the last boat (second year in a row we’ve done this…) to St Agnes and having to pay through the nose with a private trip.

A couple of days in and we joined Joe Pender and a boat full of Mary’s birders on a Pelagic,  with the numbers of Great Shearwaters being seen I was hopeful of some close views.  over 100 greats seen as well as many Sooty, manxies a Balearic or two , Bonxies following the boat and amazing Common Dolphin and Minke whale action.

On the way back the boat was followed by this first winter Yellow–Legged Gull,

We had a long spell of NW winds and no new birds, however during my stay there was one exciting day for arrivals, LP found a Greenish Warbler (pic below)and then a Red–Throated Pipit in the space of a hour, solid bit of birding that well done mate. Paul Cook picked up a Bluethroat on my last morning, i should add also.

My own finds were limited to a Rosefinch,in the garden of the house on Gugh on the 8th of Oct, the same day as the Greenish and Red-Throated pipit and a Wryneck on the morning of GKG’s Glossy Ibis and Neil wright’s Red-backed Shrike (5th Oct)

My last day held some arrivals also, things like Black Redstarts turned up on cue as well as a Little Bunting, found on Castella by Neil Wright.

I had to cut my trip short by a couple of days due to the weather. at the time this was very disappointing but I’m over it now and looking forward to next year, Gotta take the rough with the smooth etc etc.

As i write this I just received news from LP and GKG who are still there , they just found a Grey–Cheeked Thrush, well done friends, well deserved.

Its been a pretty poor September so far for me. Highlights at Walthamstow were 4 Wood Sandpipers (v rare here!) that flew over David Bradshaw, myself and n0 5 on the 6th.  A trip down to Beachy over the second weekend of the month was pretty quiet except small numbers of things like Redstart and Whinchat etc, altough I did find a 1cy Caspian Gull above birling gap, which is only the second record for the headland.

Since then i’ve had a few yellow-legged gulls on the river and things like Spotted Flycatchers and yellow wagtails at Walthamstow, not much to get you really going but what do you expect with this glorious weather!

Who gives a shit anyway? Because on Friday at midnight I get the train to penzance and then the Scillonian for another 2 weeks with the gang, bashing about the scillies looking for who knows what? Not much by the look of the weather with the Azores high firmly in place… I’m an optimist though so hopefully the following blog post will be memorable.

Saturday and Sunday were spent birding Beachy Head with Laurence P. The main highlights were the Melodious Warbler he’d found a few days previous, a Turtle Dove that we flushed from the old trapping area (both of these went un-photographed by me) and a Wood Warbler, only seen by Bob the Ringer. There was a good number of migrants over the two days:

…18 Common Redstart, 1 Black Redstart, c50 Wheatear, 7 Whinchat, 1 Spotted Flycatcher, 1 Pied Flycatcher…

…c50 Willow Warbler, c40 Common Whitethroat, c15 Lesser Whitethroat, 1 Garden Warbler, c6 Reed Warbler…

… c10 Blackcaps, 2 Tree Pipit, c100 Yellow Wagtail, c50 Barn Swallow, 3 Sand Martin, 1 Swift, 1 Merlin, 6 Sparrowhawk, c12 Common Buzzard,  Short eared Owl…

Bank holiday monday morning was spent with Rich B down at the White Cliffs/ Langdon Hole area near Dover. The site is above the port there and is as good a headland as any in my mind. Rich mentioned the attraction from the harbour lights and despite it not being totally heaving with migrants a decent total was achieved in our visit. I think were planning to put some more hours in there over autumn.

Whinchat, Black Redstart, Spotted Fly, Tree Pipit, Yellow Wagtail, 2 Wheatear, 2 Garden Warblers, 3 Reed Warblers, 30 Lesser Whitethroats, 15 Whitethroats & 5 Willow Warblers.

Mid morning Rich and I headed to Dungeness where a juvenile Caspian Gull at the fishing boats had been reported by David Walker .  A few fellow ‘gull connesuerrs’ have commented on its uglyness and perhaps its from somehwere west of the Polish/German border, but it was a nice bird to watch and tonally very Caspian. There seem to be a few more juv Casps turning up in the south now so roll on September (where were likely to have our first 1cys on the Thames)

I completely forgot to mention the American Black tern, We had a look at that, it was great.

A belated post about the other birds I saw during my recent ‘non birding’ holiday to Romania.  When I wasn’t looking at Juvenile Caspian Gulls, my early mornings were spent wandering around a body of freshwater that I just found on Google Maps. Conclusion: Romania is stacked full of birds! I had flocks of Whiskered Terns, Pygmy Cormorants, Purple Herons, Little Bitterns and Glossy Ibises, plus Golden Orioles, Turtle Doves, large numbers of dombrowski  (and a few feldegg) Yellow Wagtails, Bee–eaters and one or two Red–rumped Swallows.

The litter-strewn farmland surrounding our accommodation was also excellent for birding and became my local patch for the week. Isabelline Wheatears, Tawny Pipits, Red–backed and Lesser Grey Shrike, Black–headed Buntings, many Crested and a single Greater Short–toed Lark, more Golden Orioles in the woodland where I also had Middle–Spotted Woodpecker and the ‘croak’ and ‘whistle’ calls of Thrush Nightingales were often heard.

Much of the rest of my time was spent doing actual holiday stuff as well as looking at gulls, mentioned in the previous post.  Our final day was spent at the legendary Vadu. The drive down was continually interrupted by me pulling over to look at birds: Black–eared Wheatear, Black–headed Wagtails and 18 Red–footed Falcons chasing insects kicked up in the wake of a farmer’s tractor were among the highlights, while the non-birding members of our party (i.e. everyone but me) were entertained by the frequent roadside Bee-eaters and Rollers.

The below Short Toed Eagle was a consalation prize along with a pair of Long-Legged Buzzards at a site which I was sure was the Pied Wheatear site, but I’d buggered up the map and sent us to the wrong place, next time…

Ive missed off a few things through lazyness but as ‘not a birding holidays’ go it was pretty good. Thanks to a group of my best friends for your patience xxx

A holiday with friends to the Black Sea coast in the last week of july, my main focus – spending time with beloved girlfriend and friends… But I hoped I’d find time to see some brand new Caspian gulls. I basically got away with a few mornings and an afternoon of standing around throwing bread, looking deranged and attracting attention from gangs of drunken Romanian teenagers.

Between Mamaia, Constanta and Vadu I saw plenty, Some individuals were incredible, others less typical but but all show how variable they can be. The most constant features were expression, finer fringing to scapulars and coverts, finely patterned greater coverts (with a few execptions) nice dark thumbnail tertials and lightly barred or pure white axilleries, even on most of the darker birds, scroll down and enjoy.

Above, juvenile Yellow-Legged Gull, ringed at Constanta harbour. these birds were generally alot darker with more broad notching to the greater coverts and broader fringing to scapulars etc.

Below are some Adult Caspian Gulls from Vadu beach, most showed a yellowish tinge to the legs but some where dull grey/pink, and a variation in iris tone/darkness

I may go back in winter!!!

A slight increase in numbers of Yellow-Legged Gulls on the Thames this week, I had 10+ birds today with 7 of them juveniles. Low tide is around mid morning currently the light is abit gross.

I wanted to include the below more distant shot in this post. Once your eye is in, these birds are easily picked up even at distance with the clean white in the upper tail and even the expression, bill and head shape are all recognisable in this pic, other juveniles (Herring and LBB) all still appear to have a short p10 and some look like their learning to fly! Also noted today were a couple of juvenile YLGs today with 2 or 3 replaced scapulars already.

This nice juvenile Mediterranean Gull tentatively tried to get involved in the bread fight.

En-route to visit Laurence P last weekend I called in at Old Lodge, a Sussex Wildlife trust reserve in the Ashdown Forest as I’d heard it had been a good year for Common Redstarts. I saw about 6/7 juvs, but no adults, lovely little birds.

Its something I look forward to from about the end of May – mid summer influx of Yellow-Legged Gulls from the continent and especially the juvenile birds. Despite a gnarly summer cold myself and Dante un-earthed 4 Juvs and 2 second summer birds at Thames Barrier Park earlier on this evening. With the record for the earliest bird on our part of the Thames being the 1st of July (set by RB) these were almost a week late, better late than never.

Two individuals were particularly interested in the bread however the two others made brief appearances only. The below Adult Mediterranean Gull was an added bonus.

I guess you can expect more ylgs over the next month or so but ill try and keep them to a minimum.

Incredibly, Richard Bonser found his 3rd Bonaparte’s Gull at Crossness a couple of weekends ago. With all thats been going on with work I havent had time to post.

The following weekend Dante and I had it on the outflow at Creekmouth on the essex side of the river.

Well done rich.