Caspian and Yellow-legged Gulls on the Adur (06-08 January)

Saturday 08 January. I took Cookie to Widewater where we seawatched from 08:30-09:45 seeing 6 Brent Geese (2 then 4 flying west), 2 Kittiwakes, 3 Razorbills, a Fulmar and 21 Gannets. With the tide low we tried Harbour Way but disappointingly very few gulls roosting there. We had more luck at the Adur sandbars on the way home although conditions were atrocious, looking into almost horizontal rain for the most part. In a couple of hours struggling with my equipment I saw 94 Great Black-backed Gulls (including 2 with Norwegian colour rings although only one was readable), 600+ Herring Gulls (including an adult argentatus virtually lacking head-streaking), a first-winter Caspian Gull (with a coded yellow ring), an adult Yellow-legged Gull and 5 adult Lesser Black-backed Gulls (one a graellsii). The Caspian was the last of the more interesting birds to be seen and the one I spent most time on but by then the weather was deteriorating and my optics were becoming quite wet. I watched it for almost an hour during which time a rather bedraggled Tony Benton arrived and I was able to get him onto it. As the tide came the sandbar shrank and the gulls were pushed off as it disappeared. The Caspian was one of the last to go - a benefit of its long legs! A late afternoon dog walk around Park Avenue failed to find the Lord Derby's Parakeet but waiting for the rain to stop I definitely left it a bit late.

Great Black-backed Gull J52CE, it was ringed as chick on Gjevekolla, Mandal, Vest-Agder, Norway in July 2020 and was seen at Balgzandpolder, den Helder, Noord-Holland, The Netherlands in March 2021 and Katwijk Binnenwatering, Zuid-Holland, The Netherlands in May 2021

adult Yellow-legged Gull on the Adur

first-winter Caspian Gull on the Adur. None of my digiscoped photos were good enough to enable the ring to be read. Very frustrating as I thought I'd got it through my telescope but checking online none of the schemes I could find started with the same letter

on some images it is hard enough to see it has a ring (unfortunate positioning of rain drop) 

initially picked out by its pure white head and all black bill

this image shows, with some imagination, its small eye, greyish mantle with some dark feather centres, dark tertials with thin white edges,

switching to my camera for a more natural colour

impossible to keep the rain of its lens

showing a bit of white underwing, it was gleaming when it flew

looking through my photos the Glaucous Gull like bill of this first-winter Herring Gull caught my eye. Had it I would have checked its undertail very closely! 

Friday 07 January 2022. I took Cookie to Widewater where we seawatched from 08:15-10:00 seeing 5 Brent Geese (4 'parties' flying west), 3 Great Crested and a Slavonian Grebe, 13 Kittiwakes, 103 Razorbills and 24 to distant to be sure of, 5 Red-throated and an unidentified Diver and 5 Gannets. We stopped at the Adur on the way home seeing 2 Grey Plover, 12 Redshank, 33 Great and 2 Lesser Black-backed Gulls and local Herring Gull A6XY. An afternoon dog walk around Park Avenue failed to find the Lord Derby's Parakeet but perhaps I left it a bit late.

Thursday 06 January 2022. An early visit to Southwick Canal was successful with the Long-tailed Duck seen at its new favourite place by the small boats just east of Shoreham Oil Terminal. Three Greenfinches flew over as I was returning. I then went with Megan and Cookie to the Adur seeing Grey Plover, 42 Turnstones, 31 Great Black-backed Gulls and a North Thames colour-ringed Herring Gull between the Old Toll and Norfolk Bridges, 6 Meadow Pipits and a Chaffinch by the airfield and 40 Teal, 15 Redshank and the Greenshank in the Houseboat Channel. The Lord Derby's Parakeet was in its usual tree as I cycled by on my way to Specsavers in Worthing as well as a guestimate of 50 Ringed Plovers and 150 Dunlin on the upper beach at Eastern Sands. Three Little Grebes were seen on Widewater on my return, a much easier ride than heading west into a wind I'd under-estimated the strength of.

Southwick Canal Long-tailed Duck just east of Shoreham Oil Terminal

perhaps it exhausted the supply of weed opposite Barratt Steel?

no shortage of weed here

Herring Gull X2HT on the Adur. My 5th sighting since March 2020. It was ringed as 1CY at Pitsea in October 2013 and before appearing on the Adur was seen at Dannes, Pas-de-Calais in February 2014, North Greenwich, Greater London in July 2015 and Hove in January 2018 and August 2019.