The New Normal?

Towards the end of yesterday's post I mentioned that the forecast predicted a wet and windy night, and that I hoped a morning seawatch would be good. Well, the forecast was correct. The seawatch...?

By 07:35 the overnight southerly had veered to a south-westerly, which is straight onshore at West Bay. It was quite strong but a long way from gale force, and still carried some rain. I started up the BirdTrack app and had a scan. Two or three Gannets west in the gloom. Then a couple of Kittiwakes. A close Arctic Skua west. Nice. Very quickly the trickle became a small flood, as myriad auks, Mediterranean and Black-headed Gulls joined the fray. A distant small shearwater turned into a Balearic, then two Balearics, and I stopped trying to count Gannets and Med Gulls. It was all a bit hectic, and I began to worry about quality birds slipping past unnoticed. A distant shearwater rose into view momentarily before dropping into a trough after a couple of shallow flaps. Instant alarm bells! That was no Balearic. I tried to match my panning speed to its invisible track and guessed correctly. Up it came again, looking all stiff-winged like a big Manxie. It had to be a Great Shearwater, but was much too distant to make out any plumage detail.

Messages from Steve at Seaton: single Cory's and Great Shearwaters, a Balearic; plus even more Gannets, Kitts and auks than I was getting. It was all kicking off. Around 08:15 I had another large shearwater, this one close enough to clinch as a Great.

And so it continued, with good numbers of mostly routine fare but the occasional mega-range large shearwater defying specific ID. And then, around 09:30, a sudden pulse of large shearwaters. Almost every scan produced one or two, though mostly a very long way out. A couple gave good enough views to confidently ID as Great, but the rest were simply out of reach for me. No definite Cory's unfortunately. The closest shearwater of all was also a good one: my first Sooty Shearwater for many years headed W at 09:40.

I tried a lunchtime session, and another late in the afternoon, but added no more large shearwaters. The day's tally as follows:

3 Great Shearwaters, 27 unidentified large shearwaters, 1 Sooty Shearwater, 6 Balearics, 11 Arctic Skuas, 1 Bonxie, 117 Common Scoters, 1 Sandwich Tern. Plus uncounted Gannets, auks, Kitts and Med Gulls, all of which were well into three figures.

On its own, that list represents a fairly epic local seawatch. But in the light of what has happened elsewhere in Lyme Bay today, and at other points along the South Coast, it is nothing. For example, Portland Bill saw a movement of hundreds of Cory's Shearwaters this morning, followed by hundreds of Greats this afternoon! At Durlston (even further east than Portland): 350+ Greats and 50+ Cory's. At Berry Head: almost 800 Greats but not a single Cory's!

To give some context to all of this: in the most recent Dorset Bird Report (2021) there are no records of Cory's or Great Shearwater. In 2020, three records of Great, involving four birds; zero Cory's. Up to and including 2021, there had been just 21 Dorset records of Great Shearwater, ever.

Of course, further west, in the waters off Cornwall and Scilly, there have been ridiculous numbers of large shearwaters for many weeks now. Given a reasonable excuse, like weather or food, it wasn't difficult to imagine some of them heading this way eventually. But still, is this all just a bizarre one-off, or are we seeing the beginning of a new normal?

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...

Rouzels & Lulu

Cogden this morning was as birdy as you like, and a steady overhead passage of Meadow Pipits, Skylarks, alba wagtails and assorted finches was a constant feature. Climbing the slope below Othona I heard a Woodlark, and looked up to see a lone bird flying west almost overhead. Having seen hundreds of Skylarks already, the Woodlark looked almost tail-less in comparison, and a touch smaller. It called twice, a really distinctive sound. The French name for Woodlark is Alouette lulu. Very appropriate, because the flight call sounds just like a flutey, yodelled 'lulu'. I was confident that the recorder would have caught it, but back home I really struggled to pick it out. I can hear (and see) just one of the calls, but it's a bit weedy, and sadly not worth the bother of turning into a spectrovid for the blog. Last year's West Bay Woodlarks were similarly disappointing in that respect. Ah well, hopefully there will be further chances.

There were birds in the bushes too: 35 Chiffs and 2 Goldcrests were certainly new in. Even better, there were Ring Ouzels. The first two flew NE together up a hedge-line, pausing briefly for the camera...

Ring Ouzel #1. Full frame at 1200mm zoom.

In flight I had seen that one bird had a whitish bib, presumably this one.

Ring Ouzel #2, possibly a juv. Even with these poor views, the silvery fringes on the wing are obvious.

I've seen Ring Ouzel at West Bexington a couple of times, but these are my first at Cogden. And a short while later I added two more, both singles in different patches of scrub. One of them had a nice bib.

The Woodlark was a Cogden first too, so I went home pretty chuffed.

Somehow I wangled a late-afternoon visit today as well. Sticking mainly to the sunny upper slopes, it was obvious that most of this morning's birds had not lingered, and my Chiff count was just eight. However, imagine my delight when I managed to spot this before it spotted me...

One spanking male Ring Ouzel.

Actually, I'm sure it had spotted me too, but at least I'd noticed it while still far enough away to be tolerated!

Best of all though, it wasn't alone...

Three Ring Ouzels!

Both the other birds had white bibs too, but I got the impression they were not quite so clean and pristine as the obvious male. Certainly adults, but I'm not sure if I can safely say much more than that.

These Ring Ouzels were a bit further east than any of this morning's birds. I definitely hadn't seen such a smart male earlier, and highly doubt I'd seen the other two either. Seven Ring Ouzels it is then!

That'll do.

A Blissful Hour

It was one of those busy Sundays which looked unlikely to cough up any birding time, but a window opened at around 5pm and I was through it like a shot. A few minutes earlier I had belatedly noticed a text from Alan: he'd found a Grey Phalarope nearby. Perfect timing. Venue sorted.

I have been spoiled for Grey Phalaropes this year, but I'm not going to pass up another. Especially at a quiet location where I might have such a bird to myself. Which is exactly what happened. At 17:25 I sat down on the grass, rested my back on a post and enjoyed point-blank views of this fearless little wader until dusk.

Weather-wise the afternoon would not have felt out of place in mid-summer, and the sunlight was initially far too harsh for my limited camera skills to handle. Still...

With the lens at a 35mm-equivalent focal length of 50mm, this is more or less how the naked eye sees it.

What a treat to see it climb out a couple of times.

Still some gingery edgings on the remaining black, juvenile scapulars.

Later in the day, and the sun beginning to set.

I spent more than an hour sitting there, completely absorbed, and it went in a flash. Between sessions with the camera I mostly didn't bother with bins, preferring unenhanced reality. The post title is not hyperbole. It truly was just that.

 

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.

Lepidopteral Update

There hasn't been a Moth Diary entry for more than two weeks, so here is an update. Now, I realise this might bore the pants of some NQS readers, so at the end of the post is a little treat: a rare shot of a perched Clouded Yellow showing its upperwing.

I'll be frank. The heady days of summer, with their mothy abundance and myriad challenging micros, are over. Since the last Moth Diary (in this post on 19th September) the trap has been deployed on eight nights and bagged just five 'new for year' and one 'new for garden'. As recent NQS content has amply demonstrated, the birds are currently winning by a country mile. Nevertheless, there have been some nice mothy highlights...

 

Saturday night, 23rd September

16 moths of 7 species. Pathetic. Moths not even trying.

Monday night, 25th September

30 moths of 15 species. One lovely highlight...

A delicate immigrant Vestal, a male. Only our second this year.

Tuesday night, 26th September

35 moths of 13 species, though two were new for year...

Like flying lichen, this is Feathered Ranunculus. Recorded on 15 nights last year.

Black Rustic. Darth Vader moth. Recorded on seven nights in 2022.

Saturday night, 30th September

23 moths of 14 species. Nothing new, but two Black Rustics, plus singles of Diamond-back Moth and L-album Wainscot were nice.

Sunday night, 1st October

53 moths of 17 species; one new for year and garden. Much better. Having drooled over this very smart moth while picking through the Portland Bird Observatory trap contents a couple of weeks back, I was well chuffed to catch one here...

The garden's first Feathered Brindle, a nationally scarce coastal specialist.

Another nationally scarce coastal specialist; our second individual.

The night produced 20 Box-tree Moths, more than double our highest count until now. In 2022 we trapped 22 over 19 nights, with a peak of three. This year we are on about 120 so far. I think the picture is clear! Still, they are rather lovely, and we've had very few of these dark ones.

A local species. Our fifth of the year I think.

Monday night, 2nd October

40 moths of 18 species, but nothing dramatic. Oh, another Blair's Mocha though, bringing the 2023 tally to 'loads'. No photo of that of course. I wouldn't dare.

Tuesday night, 3rd October

23 moths of 10 species; one new for year. Until recording our first Beaded Chestnut on this very same night in 2022, I thought I must be overlooking it due to the similarity of some forms to the very common Lunar Underwing. We then ended up catching 24 over 16 nights, so this one may well be the first of a few...

Beaded Chestnut. This form is a doddle to ID, and probably the least similar to any Lunar Underwings we've ever trapped!

Another flimsy little Vestal. Gorgeous.

Wednesday night, 4th October

36 moths of 14 species; one new for year. Also notable was our third Feathered Brindle already, after none at all in 2022.

The very autumnal Barred Sallow. We trapped up to three on nine nights last year, and this is the first of 2023

Dark Chestnut. Last recorded in March, but we've only trapped a handful. Have wrestled with a few 'is it a Chestnut or Dark Chestnut?' individuals, but this is a nice fresh one, with very sharp, 90-degree apex. Even I didn't struggle with it.

Found this Rusty-dot Pearl, a regular immigrant, in the garden this afternoon. We've not had many this year, but the species' presence always gives me hope that a rarer immigrant might be just around the corner.

So that's the moths up to date. Well done if you've actually read all that. Now, as promised, a perched Clouded Yellow showing its upperwing...

...well, some of it.

One Bird

'It only takes one bird' is a tired old cliché you'll often hear trotted out to encourage birding slackers into the field in unpromising conditions. Well, tired it may be, but also very true. So many times an outing is made memorable by that 'one bird'...

An early visit to Cogden on Friday was lifted from obscurity by a vocal, fly-over Golden Plover, my first of the autumn. One bird.

For a change I managed a mid-afternoon visit too, and was so convinced there would be no fireworks that I set myself the task of counting Stonechats. The final tally was 54. It was 17:20, with 50+ Stonechats in the bag, and I was on the coast path by the previous day's Wryneck spot. I glanced briefly at the calm sea, and at that moment a wader flew west along the shoreline. Only a Grey Phalarope! It flew well past me, veered away from the beach and plonked on the sea for a short while, but carried on west before I could get close enough for a photo. I had been scanning fields and hedges all afternoon and barely looked at the sea. Perfect timing. One bird.

Saturday morning's outing had to be short, so I tried West Bay, heading up to the West Cliff quarry which hosted last year's Barred Warbler. The list would have been supremely feeble (2 Chiffs) had it not been for a Barn Owl wafting into the quarry at 07:15. A very unexpected West Bay tick, it perched for a few seconds and peered at me, before tucking itself under the overhanging curtain of scrub. Pete saw it shortly afterwards, out and hunting. One bird.

Yesterday I was at Cogden from 17:00 until dusk. A Blackcap, 5 Chiffs, a few Yellowhammers. Nothing much, really. Oh, apart from the superb Merlin which dashed NW past me and on over the coast road, my first of the year. One bird.

Cogden again first thing this morning. Boy, it was gloomy. Thick cloud, a bit mizzly, and just a single Wheatear on the beach. I definitely was not feeling it. A few feet offshore was a straggly, broken string of weedy raftlets riding a gentle swell. Normally I would not dream of hoping to find a Grey Phalarope in such conditions but, after Friday's bird in what was almost a flat calm, naturally I had an optimistic scan. Optimistic, yes, but I was nevertheless gob-smacked to realise that the distant, Grey Phalarope-shaped bit of something-or-other poking out of the weed actually was a Grey Phalarope! Though unfortunately it was not hanging about. As I hurried along the beach towards it, the bird kept moving east in fits and starts, and I never got anywhere near it. One bird.

On the return leg along the inner coast path I was pondering this 'one bird' thing that so often applies to my short outings, and how I might turn it into a blog post, when a speeding bullet whizzed past me across the reedbed. It was a Merlin, in hot pursuit of breakfast. Breakfast didn't wait around get eaten though, and the Merlin landed on the beach.

Thwarted Merlin

So, this morning - just for a change - two birds.