Out of the Blue

Recent visits to Cogden have been fairly uneventful, but that all changed yesterday afternoon. It was obvious that something was going on, with loads of gulls in the distance. They were on the sea and in the air, mostly around the area where the Cogden and West Bexington recording areas meet. And even from a mile away I could see they were almost all Med Gulls. What had attracted them? Soon enough I found out...

I'm not sure what this cultivation procedure is called (harrowing?) but the gulls like it.

There are 300+ gulls in this pic, almost all Med Gulls.

While this lot were following the tractor, there were loads more on the beach and sitting just offshore. Faced with a mass of birds I tend to undercount by some margin, so my estimate of 600+ Med Gulls is probably a bit short. However, I can safely say that my early morning Med Gull count yesterday was spot on: three. That is quite an increase through the day, and comfortably the biggest number of Med Gulls I have yet seen locally.

On the beach. Again, the vast majority are Med Gulls.

Searching through the beach birds for colour rings, I found two...

White 3758

Green RRSC, or maybe RR5C?

There was no way I could read these rings through binoculars; the camera was essential. There were doubtless a lot more colour-ringed birds in the throng, like these two unreadable examples...

Spot the two yellow rings. I am pretty sure that these will be UK birds.

With all these gorgeous gulls in the air, it was a fine opportunity to test my birds-in-flight photography skills. They are still pretty bad, and I got just one shot I was pleased with...

Adult Med Gull, with outer primaries still growing.

Yesterday afternoon's other highlight was an audience with the Cirl Bunting family...

Male. Note part-grown outer tail feathers.

Female, also in moult.

Juvenile. Full tail.

A bit later I got a flukey shot of all three together...

You can just about make out what they are: male and female on the right, juv on the left.

It is quite a while since the Cogden bushes have felt anything but empty, with my Chiffchaff and Blackcap counts rarely getting above two, so it was lovely to have a mass influx of a favourite gull completely out of the blue like that.