Caspian Gull... at Barnes!

It's no great secret that most of the reports of Caspian Gull I see reported from Barnes are met with an air of suspicion — I've never seen one there, there's never any photos, there's never really more than twenty or so large gulls on site and, well, I'm sure we all know the rest. So it was a pleasant surprise when I found this on the wader scrape:

A really beautiful 2cy bird.

And, interestingly, it was one of only about twenty large gulls on site — including one very cachinnans-like 4cy Herring Gull; though there were higher than normal numbers of Black-headed Gulls.

Also at Barnes today were two Shelducks, two Greylags (everyone say "woah"), 180+ Great Cormorants, some (Lesser) redpolls and what appeared to be a female Mallard x Black Duck hybrid.

She was pottering around happily with a male Mallard in the 'wild' area... though I imagine she's the product of a wandering female Mallard and a holiday romance in the Black Duck pen.

And talking of the captive pens; remember the Trumpeter Swans that were in the 'Icelandic pen'? They disappeared some time ago and the pen was left empty. They've now been replaced with... two Bewick's Swans. Equally Icelandic.

Batumi intern opportunity

It's still a good six months until Batumi Raptor Camp counting really begins but there's already things going on in preparation for the 2012 season. Things like getting someone on the ground in Georgia to ensure everything runs smoothly in the run up to the autumn. If you think you might be interested in spending six months in Georgia with the chance of doing some world-class raptor watching whilst you're there, or know someone else who might be, then do take a look at the following information regarding a BRC internship:

"The Batumi Raptor Count (BRC) seeks a motivated and passionate intern to work with BRC on developing conservation and monitoring programmes in the Republic of Georgia.  The intern will live near the Black Sea city of Batumi, capital of Ajara region, from April 16th to September/October 2012.  The intern will be required to act as the BRC’s representative “on the ground” and also assist with the organisation of monitoring, education and ecotourism work.  This is a unique opportunity to play a key part in a major conservation activity and is also an excellent chance for the intern to get experience of applied conservation work.  BRC aims to keep the costs to the volunteer low and will provide free accommodation, food, in-country transport and cover the costs of travel to and from Georgia.  

Booted Eagle

As well as organising our activities volunteers will also get the chance to participate in the 2012 autumn migration count where >80,000 raptors can be seen in a day! More details — including how to apply for the position — are available via the BRC website, or contact Danny Heptinstall djheptinstall@googlemail.com"

Lesser Spotted Eagle & Steppe Buzzards

Eilat

It's a month short of a year to the day since I arrived for the first time in Israel, at the 5th Eilat Bird Festival; and only a month until the 6th Eilat Bird Festival starts. I won't be there this year but it looks like it's gonna be one hell of a spring with the number of larks that are in south of the country this spring — see, for example, here and here.

I was mostly filming last year and I was sans telescope but I still managed to see some fantastic birds, a few of which I also managed to photograph. Eleven months later, I've finally got around to sorting through my photos — they're a mixture of phone scoped efforts using whoever's scope was nearest at the time, D-SLR photos taken with the ISO set to stupidly high and "phone camera'd" experimentation (you should be able to spot that one):

Striolated Bunting

Dead Sea

Thick-billed Lark

Pin-tailed Sandgrouse

Rock Martin

Hotel Agamim — Festival base camp

Masked Shrike

Ménétries's Warbler

White-eyed Gull

Oriental Skylark

MacQueen's Bustard

Rüppell's Warbler

k19 reservoir

Collared Pratincole

Citrine Wagtail

Cretzschmar's Bunting

Barbary Falcon

Squacco Heron

The average Israeli seems to have a high awareness of the birds in their country, more so than in many western European nations — this sign was in the departure lounge at Tel Aviv airport.

Muffin the Mule

Back in July, a hybrid Goldfinch x Canary turned up in the garden; I wondered if the bird had been colour-fed or if its Canary parent might have been a 'red' bird. Today, this appeared on the feeders:

I'm presuming it's the same bird that was here in July and, since the bird will have gone through a complete moult since last year and no longer looks so bright orange, I can only assume its bright colours were due to artificial colour feeding when it was in captivity. And if it's not the same bird as was here in July then someone needs to keep tighter hold of their mules!

More distant geese

Pink-footed Geese at Martin Mere WWT this time.

They were all distant in the fields at the back of the reserve. The Whooper Swans were, as usual, showing slightly better:

As were the Tree Sparrows:

Dodgy geese at 700 m

I was secretly hoping to find a Magnolia Warbler in a hedgerow as I wandered around Hale this afternoon. I didn't. I did however find this Greater White-fronted Goose with the Greater Canada Geese:

Also on the marsh were the two manky shelduck things. They've been around for a while now and get reported as any of the four non-Common species of shelduck depending on who sees them; but I'm pretty sure they're hybrids of one sort or another. The blotchy dark-green head of one of the birds and the pink legs make me think there's some Common Shelduck in there. As for the second parent, I guess Ruddy Shelduck or Cape Shelduck are both sensible guesses, though with the greyish head of the other bird I'd be tempted to plump for the latter.

There was also this dark and dusky-breasted looking canada goose:

Four Grey Partridges were in field by the side of the track; always nice to see. I love the almost luminous pink patch behind/below the male's eye.

More locals

Talk of the Devil — after mentioning that the male of 'our' Robin pair had buggered off at the end of the season, guess what appeared in our garden today.  An adult Robin sporting a ring on its left leg. I haven't managed to read the ring yet but the only other Robin I've ringed on the left leg was a 1cy (by now a 2cy).  So, unless this is a bird that was ringed somewhere else, it looks like last year's pair are back together.  Interestingly, I ringed the male bird on 19th February 2011 when he was a 2cy, nearly a year ago to the day — though of course back then 'he' was still an 'it'.

Also in the garden this lunchtime were four Woodpigeon; and one of them was ringed!

I managed to read the ring number and it turns out it's the bird I ringed on 2nd July 2011. Fascinating to see it's still around. [And if you want to read about the day I first caught it, moult analysis and all, you can do so here]

Known sex

I'm back in Liverpool for, umm, 'a bit' and took advantage of the overcast and still conditions this morning by putting a net out in the garden.  It took until gone midday — about four hours — until I caught my first birds: 'the' Robin.

It had originally been ringed as a 1cy way back in October 2010 and has been in our garden continuously ever since, joined by a male during the breeding season.  I ringed the male on the other leg, which meant I could keep track of which Robin was which without having the read the ring number each time — and it was this way, using 'behaviour', that I was able to sex the birds.  For the male it was just a holiday fling; he buggered off again come autumn.

Adult female Robin. Now in her 3rd cy.

Another retrap, this female Dunnock was originally ringed as an adult (3+cy) in summer 2010 and sexed on the basis of a brood patch — not, as I might have suggested elsewhere, because she had breasts.  A known age Dunnock is a precious thing... though I largely managed to screw up taking any pictures of her that are fit for public viewing.

This Goldfinch, despite being new, wasn't difficult to sex:

The extensive deep read on the head and the blackish 'nose hair' both point to it being a male, as does the rather long (80.5 mm) wing.  I'll be honest and say that I find Goldfinches to be one of the trickiest birds to age, and that's despite them being the commonest bird I catch in my garden.  This bird was one of the trickers ones with no retained juvenile greater coverts but no, for example, moulted primaries.  It had however moulted all three tertials and the two central pairs of tail feathers.

A second bird was considerably easy to age, having one retained juvenile greater covert.  It had moulted T1 & T2 (innermost and middle tertials).  The newer feathers were glossed slightly bluer than the juvenile feathers and the structure was noticeably denser.

Can you spot the difference?

I finished the afternoon with a wander around the local parks and gardens where there was a depressingly high number of Grey Squirrels.  Bird sightings consisted of the usual stuff: Nuthatch, Common Treecreeper, Redwing, Kestrel, Great Spotted Woodpecker etc.

Flat Menzie

Inspired by Birdchick and the adventures of her nephew's Flat Stanley, I'd like to introduce you to Flat Menzie:

Flat Menzie at the British Museum

More often than not I'm behind the camera and not in front of it — probably a good thing, actually; but it does mean I never have any photos of myself in some of the more exciting places I've visited.  Cue Flat Menzie, my 2D alter ego.  Flat Menzie is a child of the Flat Stanley project — an American initiative to connect children across the world; a child's Flat Stanley can easily and cheaply pay a visit to their pen-pal (via the postal service), do a bit of sightseeing, have their photo taken in front of a few landmarks and still be back in time for school the next week.  And the addition of an iPhone app makes it even easier to flat people to travel.

Flat Menzie celebrates Chinese Year of the Dragon in London's Chinatown

You may have noticed that I'm not Flat Stanley project's target audience.  In fact, I'm a bit worried this may border on abuse of an educational tool, so here's the deal: Flat Menzie will only appear in respectable and, where possible, culturally educational places; he won't appear in a brothel, in a west London crack den, nor with his head down the toilet after a heavy night drinking.  It's (hopefully) win-win: kids who stumble across the photos get to learn about far-flung and probably slightly obscure places, and I get to take photos of "myself".

Flat Menzie visits the São Domingos sulphur mines in Portugal

Keep an eye out for Flat Menzie in future blog posts!

Flat Menzie at the British Natural History Museum