American Herring Gull - Unfolding Story...

So yesterday afternoon I walked from Cogden to the West Bexington mere via this...

Never again! In future, the beach, just the beach.

I even took my scope, and at the mere kept my distance and went through the gulls on offer, and then pointed it at the sea to look at some of the gulls planning to sleep out there...

8 Med Gulls in this shot.

Then home, and a quiet evening of Netflix and bottled beer. Or so I thought...

During a refill break I noticed a new email. It was from Ian M, and attached were a few shots of a dark and dangerous gull which had caught his eye on West Bexington beach that morning. What did I reckon? Well, I reckoned flippin' heck...

There are several reasons why this looks a very good candidate for American Herring Gull!
(photos: Ian McLean)

I relayed my opinion to Ian, adding that you really need the rump and tail to clinch it. Ian replied that although he had noted an all-dark tail and very dark rump, he'd not been able to photograph it. This nailed it for me, and I knew where I would need to be when I was free this afternoon.

It must be a decade or more since I twice dipped the AHG which graced the Otter Estuary at Budleigh Salterton, and the species has been on my radar ever since. But you never see really dark first-winter Herring Gulls down here, so in ten or more years I've seen nothing to get excited about. Until now.

And then this morning Mike Morse popped down to West Bex nice and early on the offchance...and this flew past...

AAAAAGGGHHH!!!! I mean, AHG.     (photo: Mike Morse)

I was free at lunch time. The weather was truly dire. Heavy rain, strong SW. I could stay at home and definitely not see an American Herring Gull, or I could go to West Bexington, get cold and wet, and probably not see an American Herring Gull. I chose the latter.

Initially I was alone, and the conditions were...er...challenging. It was pouring with rain, and blowing a mild hoolie. There were few gulls on either the beach or the mere, and none of them were in the slightest bit exciting. At first...

After 30-45 minutes of very little, a newly-arrived bird on the mere caught my eye. Through bins it looked a little bit like a 2nd-winter Caspian Gull. Through the scope it looked very like one. I really didn't fancy getting the camera wet, but thought a couple of minutes of video was worth a try. My plan was to lift a few stills from the video and see what they looked like. Well, it was a plan...

2nd-winter Caspian Gull, West Bexington mere. I am well aware that these shots do not look too clever really, but at least they maintain my record of something that can be called a photo for every Caspian Gull I've ever seen!

The video quality is awful. Most of the individual frames are very blurry, it is jiggling around non-stop, and the audio is just a violent roar. But it is genuine footage of the third Casp I've been fortunate enough to find this winter. I am absolutely delighted, and really don't care that the American Herring Gull didn't show. Oops. Spoiler...

I'm going to be honest here. All the Caspian Gulls I've previously found have been 1st-winters, and I'm comfortable with that age; I am far less confident with 2nd-winter birds. I've only ever seen two, and my fear was that I was mucking up a 3rd-winter Herring Gull. I really didn't think so, but, well, let's just say I wished I'd had a [waterproof] copy of Larsson & Olsen to hand. Anyway, I need not have worried. In the field it was easy to see the little mirror on p10, a great feature for 2w Casp (just visible in the shot beneath top right), and the state of the wing coverts, tertials and flight feathers, the bill pattern, the neat speckled 'shawl' and the lovely black tail band all confirmed its age. Woo-hoo!!

So, a few other birders arrived, and it was good to put faces to one or two names I knew only from t'internet, like Marcus Lawson, Brett Spencer and Phil Saunders. And I think it was Phil who spotted the next good gull...

Yellow-legged Gull. Judging by the tiny bit of black on the bill, not quite a full adult. Lovely.

This was about an hour and forty minutes after the Casp, and by now I was getting a teeny bit cold. However, there was no way I was giving in before everyone else, so I stuck it out until around 17:00. No American Herring Gulls, but...

Earlier I'd sent this tweet to Steve Waite...

Well, it ain't rocket science!

Yep, I really enjoyed myself this afternoon. I doubt I'll get much opportunity for gull chasing during the coming week, but you never know.

West Bexington. Dipping's not all bad!