Icing On the Cake

There are a lot of very desirable birds about at the moment. Though not a student of these things, I'm pretty sure this autumn must already be exceptional, rarity-wise. And yet I am not tempted to travel and see any. Not the slightest bit. I am not jealous, not even envious. I do not wish I lived somewhere else right now, nor that I was having a nice holiday there. I am perfectly content as I am. In fact, the glut of good birds elsewhere just whets my appetite for getting out locally. I'm not making some moral point here, simply demonstrating that I'm easily pleased I suppose.

This morning I walked around the Cogden Beach area for a couple of hours from dawn. I passed one dog walker and saw a few others from a distance. Late this afternoon, a yomp from West to East Bexington and back. Again, I passed just a lone dog walker, and saw a handful of other folk from a distance. A few hours in the field, and virtually no one about. Certainly no birders. That, to me, is almost the perfect birding scenario. Factor in that we're talking gorgeous coastal habbo, and then it pretty much is perfect.

Grounded migrants at Cogden were few. I counted 7 Wheatears on the beach (cf 17 on Saturday) and just 2 Chiffs and a Blackcap in the bushes. Overhead, Skylarks were prominent, with around 70, but nothing else of particular note. A Water Rail called repeatedly from the reed bed, and I was glad I had the recorder running. I was also glad I could get a phone signal, because at 08:30 Mike called to let me know that 2 Whooper Swans were heading my way from West Bex. Presumably the birds which had recently spent some time at Abbotsbury Swannery, they came past with a tag-along Mute Swan. Just as I was firing off a final burst with the camera, one of them honked a couple of times. Excellent! A bit distant, and partially drowned by surf on shingle, but the recorder caught it...

Whooper Swans. Proper wild ones. Lovely.

If I kept such things as a local list or a Dorset list I'd have had a tick right there. But I don't and therefore didn't. They very much made my morning though. That's three times in just over three weeks that Mike has phoned from West Bex to get me on to birds heading west towards Cogden: 17 pale-bellied Brents, 2 Great White Egrets and now these. It's about time I returned the favour; I'm beginning to feel like a freeloader!

Late this afternoon I managed another outing. My intention was an uncharacteristic bit of 'fast' birding, a rapid march from West Bexington to the East Bexington tamarisks, and back before dinner. It's a while since I've been quite that far, and time was tight. Actually it was blowing a bit of a hoolie, and visions of an East Bex Yellow-browed Warbler flicking through the whispy fronds began to fade somewhat. Ah well, let's push on anyway...

There are several ploughed fields at East Bexington, and one of them held some gulls. Not loads, but a modest gang of small ones, and a separate, even smaller bunch of big ones. Almost all the big gulls were Great Black-backed, maybe 30 or so. Now, this might sound silly, but in my limited (and 100% local) experience of Caspian Gull, the brutish, hulking Great Black-backed Gull has for some curious reason turned out to be a bit of a 'carrier' species, so straight away I began to grill all the youngsters. And would you believe it, the very first one I checked was a Caspian Gull! And not any old Caspian Gull, but an absolute peach, with a set of coverts to die for...

The icing on the cake. One stonking juv/first-winter Caspian Gull

The gulls weren't close, and I was lying on a grassy embankment, trying to keep the camera steady at full 2000mm zoom in the strong wind. I took quite a few pics, but failed to get any decent open-wing shots, and the one time it flew I botched it. But there is this little video. With the volume up, you too can enjoy the rather fresh north-westerly...

This bird is actually a good one for highlighting some useful Casp ID tips. Initially I planned to do so today, but time is against me, so instead I'll cobble together one or two annotated photos for another post, hopefully this week. Birders in this part of the country stand a pretty decent chance of finding their own Caspian Gull I reckon, but you need to be aware of what to look for. Also they are still rare enough down here that you get a real buzz when it happens! I love 'em!

I never made it to the tamarisks...