Garden Blackcap

The first in our garden this winter.  It only stayed for a few minutes.  Possibly an over wintering bird moving through.

Blackcap

Glaucous Gull again and colour ringed gulls

A late afternoon visit to Little Marlow GP mainly concentrated on the gull roost which gradually built during the time I was there. When I arrived Dave Cleal was already present and had seen a Mediterranean Gull but had been lost in the mass of gulls.  In searching for the Med Gull I did come across several colour ringed gulls.  These were :-
Black-headed Gull with white colour ring on right leg with code "AJ66". This was ringed in Germany (Helgoland) on 12 June 2015 and was seen at Little Marlow on 7th December.  See my previous post.
Black-headed Gull with white colour ring on right leg and code "507".  This bird was ringed as a 3rd calendar year + female on 27 March 2011 in Svanemollebugten, Copenhagen, Denmark.  It has subsequently been seen in Denmark several times and at Little Marlow during the winters of 2012/13, 2014/15 and 2015/16.  It is incredible how this individual returns to Little Marlow!
Herring Gull with orange colour ring on left leg with code starting with the letters "G9".  There were presumably one or two more characters but these could not be read. However Adam Bassett contacted me to say that me had also seen this bird and the ring was "G9MT", another bird from the North Thames Ringing Group.

Dave left about 16:30 and I carried on searching through the gull roost.  I came across the adult Mediterranean Gull but it was on the far side of the sand spit and only it's head could be seen.  I did notice that the number of larger Gulls was higher than previous evenings and on another scan through the mass of birds, I came across the same Glaucous Gull that I had previous seen on 27th February (link to post).  The bird was still present until 17:45 at least by which time Paul Watts had joined me.

Black-headed Gull - White 507.The code can just be read.

Glaucous Gull - The 1st winter bird

Mediterranean Gull at LMGP

Possibly the same bird as on 25th Feb,  As it was in among the mass of Common Gulls it was not too hard to locate.

Mediterranean Gull in the roost

I decided to take a video of the impressive gull roost.  To view the video click here
At least five species of gull are present in the video.

Glaucous Gull at LMGP

A mid afternoon walk to the lake to check if the brisk E wind had brought anything in.  It was bitterly cold!!  I bumped into Kevin Holt in the car park and we walked to the watching area by the bench.  There were perhaps 1500 Gulls present and numbers were gradually building up as the afternoon progressed.  After a few minutes I cam across a large pale Gull well out on the sand spit.  It's pink bill with a black tip and white primaries gave it away as a Glaucous Gull.  This is a scarce bird at this site although there has been one record so far this year.
I put the word out and a few other birders appeared in due course.

Both the Glaucous and a Greater Black-backed Gull
looked around when a Cormorant appeared..

Also present among the c750 flock of Black-headed Gulls was this colour ringed individual "Yellow 2KRC".  It was ringed by the North Thames Ringing Group at Pitsea Landfill Site 21st March 2015 as a 3rd calendar year bird. It was also seen at LMGP in January by Adam Bassett.  There are no other sightings.  The history of this bird can be seen here. 

Garden Birds

I decided to try photography a few of the common garden birds using my camera Panasonic G6 with standard lens on a tripod and controlled remotely by the cameras built in wi-fi.  The set-up was easy to use and the results good.  Thanks to Neil Fletcher for showing me how to use the remote functionality on my camera!

Blue Tit - One of the most common of our garden birds.
Looking extremely smart at this time of year.

Long-tailed Tit - They seem to love the suet blocks and
have been very regular visitors over recent weeks, usually in small flocks.

Coal Tit - Slightly more infrequent than the other two and usually solitary.

Mainly Gulls! - at LMGP

A walk around the lake was reasonably productive with three Chiffchaffs, a GreyWagtail, three Snipe, a Water Rail and thousands of Gulls!!

This Water Rail was feeding in the stream to the east of the lake.

Mediterranean Gull
Seen on the east of the lake but digiscoped from the west side!

Mediterranean Gull 
Possibly the same bird as above but much later and asleep on the west side of the sand spit.

Gull roost on the sand spit.
Mainly mixture of Black-headed, Common, Herring and Lesser Black-backed Gulls

Possibly the biggest gull roost I have seen here with an estimated 5000 Common Gulls, 3000 Black-headed Gulls, 50 Herring Gulls and 50 Lesser-Black-backed Gulls.

As usual something spooked the gulls with an impressive result!  A huge flock on the water in the background of this photo did not move.  They extend well to the right of this photo.  Plus there are many more to the left and right foreground of this photo.

Pintail and Red-crested Pochard at LMGP

Pintail are and infrequent visitor to Little Marlow GP, so I took the opportunity to digiscope these two males and a female even though they were very distant.

These Red-crested Pochard were even further away than the Pintail.  Unfortunately it was asleep along with the Common Pochards.  Again another irregular species to the site but there has been a few more records in recent months.