Frenchmen OTL

29th February - Little of note and none of the hoped for early migrant waders, although the wintering Chiffchaff continues to sing along the western bank.

The huge number of white feathers floating across the lake is evidence of the number of roosting gulls using the site, but little of note today.  I actually did a complete circuit of the site, which is quite unusual and probably why I am still missing a few 'easy' birds from my year list.  The arable fields to the north of the lake held a covey of 6 Red-legged Partridges, so another common bird ticked off!

Another Med - or the Same?

25th February - Steve R had reported an adult Med Gull from the pit this morning.  I paid a quick visit mid afternoon and was surprised to find presumably the same bird still present.  It had a partial hood, quite dark on the back of the head and a blood red bill, so sounds very like the description of the recent bird at Hedgerley.  It might also be the same bird seen intermittently since mid January, but since these birds look different almost daily at this time of year, it is hard to be sure.

A poor record is shown below, just before it sat down, put its head in its back and a Common Gull stood in front of it, never to show clearly again while I was watching!

A Visitor from Pitsea

24th February - very little of note today, although a Skylark over south was a patch year tick.

The Shelduck had moved on and no waders could be found.  A 1w Herring Gull bearing an orange darvic ring on its right leg appeared on the spit.  It was just too far for me to read, but with the aid of Alan S's 70x lens, it was no problem - AW1T.  This turned out to be a bird ringed at Pitsea landfill just 6 weeks ago on January 14th.  There have been sightings of birds from this site before - I just wish some of its rarer visitors could make it over here - the Slaty-backed Gull from last year springs to mind!

http://www.ntgg.org.uk/map/GR30518

Some Waders

23rd February - a lovely mild morning found a few new birds.

Firstly, Shelduck numbers had increased to 4, with 3 males and a female.  Secondly, a Green Sandpiper was heard calling and flew over from the east continuing westwards - possibly new, but probably one of the local wintering birds.  Thirdly, a Dunlin appeared amongst the Lapwing flock and was watched feeding for a while before it seemed to depart when the Lapwing flushed (as they always do!)

Second of the year

The wintering Chiffchaff was enjoying the sunshine and singing intermittently along the west bank.  A Snipe also spent a lot of time soaking in the warmth of the sun.

The gull flock continues, comprising mainly Common Gulls, which number into the thousands as the day progresses at this time of year and Black-headed Gulls.  Large white-headed gulls come and go during the day, no doubt taking a break from local feeding sites such as Hedgerley landfill.  The Great Black-backed Gulls numbered 16 mid morning, which is still a reasonable number for this site, comprising 9 adults, 5 1st winters and 2 2nd winters.

Later on a Tawny Owl was heard calling from near the car park, which is a new one for the year.

A Damp Day

22nd February - my first proper visit for a while.  A male Shelduck was on the spit and there were an assortment of gulls to look through, but not much else...and then it rained!

One of the juvenile gulls had found a fisherman's lure in the shape of a small fish and was tossing it around being chased by other gulls.  I was rather perturbed to see that it still had a triple hook attached at one end!  I saw the same lure a while later still being played with, but minus the hooks, so I hope it had dropped off rather than been swallowed.

I spent a little while watching a very white-headed and white-bellied first winter gull, hoping that it might be something interesting - it certainly stood out from the crowd.  However, it always looked like a Herring Gull and when it opened its wings, it displayed a classic Herring Gull pattern.  It is surprising how pale these first winters can get at this time of year.  I know some of the northern argentatus can be pale, but this did not look big enough for argentatus and was probably just a bleached argenteus.

Pale

Just a Herring Gull

There were also 2 colour-ringed Herring Gulls, a red-ringed 1w and an orange-ringed 2w, neither of which I could read.

Colour-ringed Herring Gull Update

I have just heard back about the colour-ringed Herring Gull from last week . It is obviously a site faithful bird, as it was ringed at Gerrard's Cross landfill (I assume the Hedgerley landfill site).  It was ringed on 21st January 2004 as an adult, which makes it at least 12 or 13 years old - the ring was confirmed as 1652 on an orange darvic ring.  It has not been reported since its ringing until now.

Frozen Wasteland!

12th February - the previous afternoon I had toyed with the idea of making a late afternoon visit, but had decided to watch the rugby instead, only to find out later that 4 Smew had made a flying visit at about 5pm.  Therefore, this afternoon I made a visit in the hope of a repeat performance, but no such luck!

The lake was still iced over except for a patch only big enough to accommodate about 5 birds.  There were a few gulls standing about, one of which was a colour-ringed adult Lesser Black-backed Gull.  It bore a dark blue darvic with orange 'AEY' on its left leg.  A quick response from the scheme co-ordinator showed this to be a bird ringed at Gloucester landfill in February 2007.  It has never been recorded out of the country and was most recently seen on 24th January 2012 at Lower Farm GP near Newbury, Berkshire, about 27 miles WSW as the gull flies.  Interestingly, this site also hosted a Ring-billed Gull recently - it would be nice to get this gull to transfer here as well!

Too gloomy to read, but it is 'AEY'

I stayed to see what the usual roost might bring, but unsurprisingly, the gulls had pretty much all departed by dusk.  A wandering fox was an obvious threat.  There was, however, quite a large roost of Jackdaws, which is a feature of this site, which numbered many hundreds.  Another feature is the Magpie roost at the base of the spit - again numbers probably topped 100, but I did not attempt a count.  2 small passerines dived into the reeds near the cottages, of which the one that I saw was a female Reed Bunting - another 1 for the year list.

As I left, the only waterfowl remaining were 2 Egyptian Geese on the spit, a single Greylag in the lake 'puddle' about 30 Teal in a tight group on the spit, a handful of Coot and Moorhen and a pair of Mallard - roll on the predicted thaw!