Nottinghamshire Gulls

This week I had a couple of visits looking for wintering Black-headed Gulls.

The first trip was to Rufford Country Park on Wednesday, where there were approximately 100  gulls including several familiar birds: V77K, a Danish -ringed bird born in 2015, British-ringed EL87245, 243A (ringed at Sherwood Center Parcs, in December 2019), 246A, ringed by me at Center Parcs on 21st December 2019 (see here), and my first sighting since and 259A, also ringed at Center Parcs, this time on 1st February 2020, and also the first sighting away from that site.

246A at Rufford CP

My second trip was around Clumber Park on Saturday, where there were 300+ gulls around the main lake. The majority were Black-headed, but there were also a dozen or so Common Gulls. Whilst there I managed to see 5 darvic-ringed Black-headed Gulls: 217A, 237A, 246A (again!) and 2 new ones for me, 257A (ringed at Center Parcs on 1st February 2020) and 2ASN, a second winter bird, that had been ringed, as a chick, at Rutland Water in June 2019.

257A

2ASN

Darviced Black-headed Gull at Holmebrook Valley CP

Last Sunday, my nephew, Luke was at his local patch, Holmebrook Valley CP, in Chesterfield, to carry out his monthly WeBS count. He always has a fair few Black-headed Gulls (100+ on a good day), along with the odd Common, Herring and Lesser Black-backed Gull.

He has also recorded several metal-ringed Black-headed Gulls over the last few years, but they have always stayed out on the middle of the lake, too far away for the rings to be read. Sunday, however, was different, and he managed to see and photograph a darvic ringed Black-headed Gull.

Black-headed Gull

As you can see in the photograph, the bird in question was a 1st winter/2nd calendar year bird (born in 2018), with a blue darvic ring. Unfortunately, the number is very difficult to read, but it looks very similar to another ring that Luke and I saw on a bird in Bakewell in August 2018 (see here). That bird had been ringed at Rutland Water in June 2018. We're still awaiting details, but it would be great if we'd found a second Rutland bird here in Derbyshire!

Darvic'ed Black-headed Gull in Bakewell

Following the Swedish ringed Black-headed Gull in Bakewell (see here) I decided to go back again on Thursday (30th) to see if I could see it again. I managed to find it, in exactly the same spot, and took a picture of the whole bird this time, not just its feet!!

Swedish BHG 6198688

Whilst there I was also very lucky to find another ringed bird. This time it was a juvenile/1st winter Black-headed Gull that had been ringed at Rutland Water Nature Reserve on 1st June 2018, as a nestling. As well as its metal ring, it had also been fitted with a blue Darvic ring 2AHN.

Blue 2AHN

Luke popped across on Saturday (1st), and found it in the same area on the river. 

Blue 2AHN (courtesy of Luke)

He also had another ringed Black-headed Gull! This one just had a metal ring, and the words British Museum could be seen on it, meaning it was ringed somewhere in the UK. He managed to get the full number and sent it off to the BTO. I'll update when we hear back.

UPDATE: Luke heard back today (3rd Sept) that his Black-headed Gull had been ringed in Boston, Lincolnshire on 09/01/10 (114kn away). It was aged as at least 2 years old when ringed.

Rutland Water - 5th April 2018

Luke and I went to Rutland Water Nature Reserve on Thursday to catch up with the Ospreys that had returned to breed on the reserve. We spent the day there, and got great views of the Manton Bay pair, along with another 4 "year ticks", including a Wheatear, that was quite unexpected. We also a breeding plumaged Mediterranean Gull that had originally been ringed in Poland.

The weather was great, 12 degrees, bright blue skies and sunshine, so we also managed to get our first butterflies of the year; 1 Comma, 1 Small Tortoiseshell and 3 male Brimstones.

The other "year ticks" (numbers 103 - 107) on the list below, were seen at Scarborough on Tuesday (3rd), where I also had a stunning breeding plumaged Mediterranean Gull. Unfortunately, I couldn't get a photo as I'd left my camera at home!!!!!

The Chiffchaff, 4 in total, were seen at Linacre on Wednesday 4th.

Year List update:
103 – Red Kite
104 – Kittiwake
105 – Turnstone
106 - Fulmar
107 – Rock Pipit
108 – Chiffchaff
109 – Willow Warbler
110 – Black-necked Grebe
111 – Sand Martin
112 – Wheatear
113 - Osprey

Bird Fair 2014

On Friday I went down to Rutland Water with my nephew, Luke, to visit this year's British Bird Fair. I like to go along every year to look around all the different trade stands, spot a few celebrities, buy a new book (or two) and get a few "year ticks".

The day started at the BTO's Ringing Demo. The weather conditions were perfect, and the nets were full, including a smart looking Marsh Tit. This was the first I've seen "in the hand", and was a very nice year tick too. Whilst there, Luke also got the chance to release a Blackcap and a couple of Great Tits.

After the ringing, we walked around the stands, where I bought a new moth book,  helped the BTO celebrate 75 years of the Nest Record Scheme, by eating a slice of their birthday cake, and then went along to a moth talk featuring a celebrity, Richard Lewington, the illustrator of many superb wildlife books, most of which I've bought (see here for details of the books he's illustrated). The talk was great, and included a few new moths (Canary-shouldered Thorn, Swallow Prominent and Lesser Swallow Prominent), but the highlight for Luke was a very photogenic Elephant Hawkmoth (his first), which posed very nicely for him.

Luke and an Elephant Hawkmoth

The final part of the day was a visit to the Osprey Project to see.... the Ospreys. We walked along to the Wader Scrape hide and saw the Manton Bay Pair, who were sitting on the perch next to the nest. Unfortunately, this pair hasn't managed to raise any chicks this year, but a total of 11 chicks have been born around the reservoirs. Whilst here, we also spotted a couple of Little Egrets, a few Common Terns, 2 Egyptian Geese and 4 Common Sandpipers.

Year List Update:

167 – Marsh Tit

168 – Osprey
169 – Egyptian Goose

Year List Update

Just a quick  post to update the old Year List. Three new species were added recently as follows:

172 – Osprey
173 – Greenshank
174 – Ruff

The Osprey was added whilst visiting Rutland Water for the Bird Watching Fair and the 2 waders were seen last week on a quick visit to RSPB Old Moor at Barnsley.

Greenshank

Ruff

Like London Buses...

Books that is, not birds.

Back in October last year I spotted two new books that I thought would make lovely Christmas presents for yours truly. I ordered both and waited for their arrival. 5 months later and both arrived within two days of each other. Happy Christmas.

The first to arrive was a super book describing the story behind the reintroduction of Ospreys to Rutland Water in Leicestershire.

The book is full of amazing photographs, sketches and information from a range of different people who have been, or are still, involved in the project and is well worth a read.

The second book is another excellent, if not somewhat different book, in that this one is a field guide, which will, hopefully, help me identify all those pesky hoverflies I've got photos of.

The book, imaginatively called British Hoverflies, is the newest in a series of field guides from an excellent company called Wild Guides. It has over 500 colour photographs and covers 165 of the most easily identifiable hoverfly species found in Britain. Now all I've got to do is trawl through my photographs and identify them all. Who knows, I might even blog about some, if and when I've put names to them- lucky you!!

Both books are definately worth a look. The Osprey one can be ordered via the Rutland Osprey Project website and the hoverfly book can be bought directly from the Wild Guides website (see link above) or via this link.

Please have a look at the Osprey website especially, as it will keep you up to date with their work and there is also information about the birds that breed there, what they're doing at the moment (migrating north as we speak) and live web cams that will allow you to see the young birds as they grow later in the year.

No ringing today because of the rain this morning, so I thought you might like to see an awful picture that I took out of my kitchen window this morning of a Lesser Redpoll, a Siskin and a Goldfinch, having breakfast on my feeders.

Lesser Redpoll (bottom left), Siskin (male at the back) and Goldfinch (top right)

Rutland Water - 24th September 2011

Rutland Water, an amazing nature reserve run by Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust, was the site for this month's field trip of the Chesterfield RSPB group. 18 people took part and between us we saw a total of 67 species, including 6 species of wader, 5 species of gull, 3 different types of bird of prey, thousands of waterfowl and 5 species of butterfly (Comma, Small Tortoiseshell, Red Admiral, Brimstone and Speckled Wood)!

First stop on today's trip was the main Egleton Visitors' Centre in Oakham. Looking out from the upstairs hide, we logged our first birds including 2 Little Egrets, dozens of Gadwall, Shoveler,  Tufted Duck, Pochard, Mallard and a juvenile Shelduck.

Little Egret

Next stop was the Sandpiper Hide overlooking the Lagoon 4 where 3 Swallows were spotted, along with 2 Egyptian Geese, 1 Ruff, a male Pintail and a flock of 30+ Golden Plover. Lapwing Hide provided the group with a few more summer migrants with a Blackcap, a Willow Warbler/Chiffchaff and 10+ House Martins amongst the birds spotted. Also from this hide were an amazing total of 16 Little Egrets!

Egyptian Goose

Walking back to the main centre we stopped off at Redshank Hide, where we saw a hunting Kestrel and had sustained views of a fishing Kingfisher.

The afternoon saw us travel across to the Lyndon Reserve. We managed to visit three of the hides on this part of the reserve and saw 2 Red Kites, several more waders (2 Redshank, 1 Ringed Plover, 2 summer plumaged Black-tailed Godwit and 2 Curlew), 2 juvenile "commic" terns, which were most likely Common Terns and 2 Common Gulls.

Common Gull