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...
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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.
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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...
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A nice open-wing shot, showing tail pattern also.
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It was a big bird, but not enormous.
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This mid-preen shot nicely shows the many unmoulted juv scaps.
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Alongside young Herring Gulls it was a case of chalk and cheese.
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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...
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Some of the 'catch your eye' type features.
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Less 'catch your eye', more 'interesting detail'.
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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...
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Nice comparison of juv Shag (left) with Cormorant.
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Two of the three Shags.
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Finally, some passerines...
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Juv Whinchat at the back of the beach.
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Fence post decoration.
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...and the best moth of last night's meagre lot...
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Olive-tree Pearl Palpita vitrealis. A migrant, and the garden's second, following one in 2022.
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