A Beautiful Mongrel

The West Bay patch has suddenly grown some amazing new habitat. I first noticed it yesterday afternoon, and this is what it looked like this morning...

Lovely, lovely floodwater. And this isn't all of it.

Lying between the River Brit and West Bay Road, these fields are home to the annual Melplash Show, one of the Southwest's top agricultural exhibitions. On a more mundane note, they are also home to a million dog-walkers (who actually pay a fee for the privilege) and therefore normally birdless. I assume the combination of rain and a big tide has caused the Brit to burst its banks, and hope sincerely that it will take a very long time (like, all winter please) to subside. Thankfully the flood is extensive enough that birds are not necessarily spooked by the dog-walkers around its fringes. After discovering this Mecca late yesterday, I stayed until it was too dark to see. Apart from two or three Med Gulls, there was a steady trickle of big gulls dropping in for a pre-roost wash and brush-up. Nothing of note, but a heady scent of promise!

A grainy, high-ISO shot of one of yesterday afternoon's adult Med Gulls.

As well as a sheet of water there are several lines of robust fencing for gulls to perch on. The morning sun illuminates them beautifully...

Just one Med Gull this morning.

Adult Med Gull

There were also decent numbers of large gulls. When I have the time to do it properly, picking through a load of big gulls is one of my favourite pastimes. Mostly they will be argenteus Herring Gulls in various plumages. With adults (or near-adults) I am on the lookout for any that might be a shade darker, which is usually the first step to bagging a Yellow-legged Gull. And this morning there was just such a bird, noticeably darker than nearby adult Herring Gulls. However, it was no Yellow-legged Gull...

That bill betrays its immaturity straight way. So, not an adult. Also, with that coarse dark streaking on neck and head, not a Yellow-legged Gull either.

Here it is alongside an adult Herring Gull. Slightly darker, and a different sort of grey altogether.

Size-wise it was in the 'small Herring Gull' bracket.

So, darker than argenteus HG but definitely not YLG. What other options are there? Well, one is argentatus, or so-called Scandinavian Herring Gull, which is a lot rarer down here than YLG. But argentatus HG is normally a big, heavily-streaked brute of a gull, which this is not.

The final option that I know of is Herring x Lesser Black-backed hybrid. I haven't knowingly seen one for ages, but recall that they tend to be on the small side. It would be nice to see the wing pattern...

There we go! Note lack of mirrors in outer primaries; just a tiny white spot on the left wing.

Black in the primary coverts and in the tail feathers, plus a brownish tinge to some of the wing feathers, indicate a bird in its third calendar year, i.e. 3rd-winter plumage. A pure Herring Gull of this age ought to have obvious mirrors in the outer primaries (Yellow-legged Gull too) while a pure Lesser Black-backed Gull would be significantly darker, and probably have more extensive black on the inner primaries, rather than just a speck on p4. So I am pretty confident in calling this a Herring x Lesser Black-backed hybrid. And rather beautiful it is too.

I can't believe we suddenly have all this lovely gull habitat. I am so excited!

On a different note...

Last week was half-term, and West Bay had many visitors. Having lived here for a while now, I am well aware of the hazards associated with our rugged coastal scenery. But visitors may not be. So there are plentiful signs in prominent places, warning of the dangers. Like cliff-falls, for example. Mind you, one scan of the East Cliffs is enough to tell you that cliff-falls are frequent, and often big. But hey-ho, it won't happen to me...

The East Cliffs, with the remains of at least three recent falls in this shot.

Cliff-falls often obliterate the beach below, from the base of the cliffs to well beyond the low-water mark. Anyone caught in that would undoubtedly be a gonner. Sometimes the beach is closed after such falls. Eventually the sea washes away the rubble furthest from the cliffs, leaving just a steep mound at the very foot of them, and the beach is opened again. But it is only a matter of time until the next massive collapse...

Following a night of torrential rain... Russian roulette, with rocks.