Cogden Casp

Cogden was dull, dreary and dripping first thing, and its bushes a bit quiet. The light rain gradually eased to nothing as I headed slowly east along the coast path, and the relative lack of migrants prompted me to return along the beach for a change. I had already noted a decent flock of big gulls to check out, but knowing how jittery and unapproachable they normally are I didn't hold out much hope of extracting anything special. For once I was delightfully wrong.

After a few beach-based Wheatears and Whinchats, I was getting close to the gulls. They tend to flush at the slightest provocation, so I gingerly peered over the shingle ridge and had a scan of the closest birds. My disbelieving eyes nearly popped out of their sockets - almost the first bird I saw was one of the most instantly-obvious Caspian Gulls I have been fortunate enough to encounter...

1cy (first calendar-year) Caspian Gull in the foreground, with five Herring Gulls (4x 1cy plus a 2cy) behind. As this photo suggests, I was desperately trying to keep out of sight. Full 2000mm zoom and roughly 50% crop.

I could hardly have been more jammy. I had managed not to flush the gulls, and there was no one else on the beach yet. Perfect. I spent the next ten minutes on my knees, papping away. Which accounts for the following image glut...

A nice open-wing shot, showing tail pattern also.

It was a big bird, but not enormous.

This mid-preen shot nicely shows the many unmoulted juv scaps.

Alongside young Herring Gulls it was a case of chalk and cheese.

The final shot in the above sequence got me thinking...

To my eye the Casp stands out like a sore thumb, but I am well aware that to many birders it is just a gull among gulls, and visually unremarkable. Almost three years ago I was asked to write a gull ID article for the Dorset Bird Club magazine. I cannot recall exactly what the brief was, but I ended up focusing specifically on first-winter Caspian Gull. The piece was published in the August 2022 edition of Dorset Birds, and entitled How to Find Your Own Dorset Caspian Gull. At the time I had found just three Casps in Dorset, but including today's bird have since added two others. My aim was to encourage gull sceptics simply to look at big gulls with a view to picking out a first-winter Casp. Caspian Gull is genuinely scarce in Dorset - and I would not be surprised if the species is missing from the county lists of many Dorset birders - but first-winters are realistically do-able for anyone who wants to make the effort. And in my opinion that effort is likely - in time - to be rewarded.

Today's bird was not exactly what I would call a 'first-winter', but it was well on the way. Certainly it is the youngest Casp I have ever seen, with a lot of juvenile scapulars still, but the strikingly white head that first-winters display was coming along nicely. So, in the hopes of encouraging larophobes maybe to dip a toe into the dark, dark water, here are a couple of the above pics with [hopefully] helpful annotations...

Some of the 'catch your eye' type features.

Less 'catch your eye', more 'interesting detail'.

Of course, a key aspect of Casp ID is sorting out what age it is, but honestly, no Herring Gull ever looks like this bird!

Admittedly I do look at gulls when I get the chance, but my five West Dorset Casps in less-than-optimum locations over nine years suggests that there is plenty of potential for any would-be Casp finder.

Beyond the gull flock, a handful of what I initially assumed were Cormorants lurked at the water's edge. Well, three of them turned out to be juvenile Shags, a fairly scarce species here...

Nice comparison of juv Shag (left) with Cormorant.

Two of the three Shags.

Finally, some passerines...

Juv Whinchat at the back of the beach.

Fence post decoration.

...and the best moth of last night's meagre lot...

Olive-tree Pearl Palpita vitrealis. A migrant, and the garden's second, following one in 2022.