West Bay Casp & Other Tales

Today looked unlikely to yield any birding time, but an afternoon visit to West Bay with our granddaughter at least allowed an opportunity to take bins and camera. As we arrived I noticed the river level was down, so suggested that Sandra wheel Gracie to the seafront while I checked out the little gang of gulls on the mud.

'Won't be a minute', said I.

What a liar.

From the bridge they were mostly head on, or nearly so, but among the 30-odd birds present, one stuck out like a sore thumb. I had to double-check it wasn't a Great Black-backed Gull, but no, definitely not. It was a monster Casp...

What a beast! That is a huge male Caspian Gull. It really has the 'look' in this photo, but it's also worth noting the fine sub-terminal anchors on the visible scapulars, compared to the coarser versions on the two Herring Gulls. It also sports the 'saggy nappy' in the vent area (visible between its legs) characterisitic of some Casps. The legs were strikingly pale too, though I'm not aware of this particularly being a feature of Caspian Gull. The rather long tibia are though.

I could hardly believe my good fortune, and hurried round to the little green on the west side of the estuary to try and get a more side-on view...

The best side-on photo I managed.

I've seen whiter underwings on Caspian Gull, but these aren't too bad.

So, everything was going very nicely. I was sitting on a handy bench, close enough to need only 800mm of zoom; the light was good; the bird preening happily...

And then something spooked the lot of them. It caught me completely off-guard, and the best nearly-in-flight efforts I managed were not that great...

The tail is spot on, there is a nice 'Venetian blind' effect on the visible inner primaries in that right-hand pic, and the fully raised underwing is actually paler than it first appeared. No question at all about this bird's ID. It's a nailed-on Casp.

There is less than five minutes between my first photo and my last. And once again I found myself wondering at the serendipitous nature of so many of my recent encounters with good birds. What were the chances...?

Anyway, I stuck a message on the local WhatsApp group, caught up with Sandra and Gracie and - as soon as I could - reviewed my photos. At which point my heart sank. I can only put what happened next down to the fact that I had deliberately underexposed the photos a touch so as not to blow out the whites, and was fooled by their apparent darkness, but I rapidly came to the conclusion that I had just cocked up a first-winter Yellow-legged Gull. So I berated myself for being such an idiot, and immediately WhatsApped a correction.

Back home I got the photos up on the laptop.

Oh...

So I WhatsApped a correction of the correction, and felt a bit stupid.

Still, all's well that ends well. This Caspian Gull is my first for two years, and a long-desired first for West Bay. I particularly wanted to find one on the tiny Brit estuary too, with the point-blank views it offers. That bird will keep me going for quite a long time, I reckon.

In other news...

On recent visits to Cogden I've noticed an obvious increase in birdy activity offshore. For example, early yesterday morning I counted 134 Med Gulls heading west as I walked the beach, and recorded my first Red-throated Diver of the autumn. Gannets and large gulls have been conspicuous - ditto off West Bay this afternoon - as well as distant flights of auks. There is obviously food out there. Tonight is forecast wet and windy, so I am hoping that a morning seawatch will be good. Of course, I always hope that a morning seawatch will be good, but once in a blue moon it actually is.

Best Cogden bird since the Ring Ouzels and Woodlark is this...

Early-morning Marsh Harrier yesterday, my first of the year.

I completely mucked up the exposure, but at least it was reasonably well in focus.

I was going to add a Moth Diary to this post, but I think it's long enough already. And anyway, I want to drool over my Casp shots for the rest of the evening...