NORTH DOWNS & BEYOND

Once upon a time, in a birding world far, far away, if you wanted to take meaningful photographs of birds, then you needed to invest heavily in photographic equipment - camera bodies, various lenses, tripods, film, developing and printing - you needed to start with a small fortune and forgo pure birding and focus almost entirely on photography. In fact, you were either a bird watcher or a bird photographer . In my birding youth there were but a handful of well-known bird photographers, largely shooting in black-and-white, with JB and S Bottomley and Eric Hosking springing most readily to mind. More affordable equipment, increased leisure time and a swelling in the interest in rarities encouraged a blossoming of 'birders with cameras' at the end of the 1970s and the turn of the 1980s. You still needed to fork out a few bob, but many did so. It became a staple part of a twitch to see these photographers selling their prints of recent rarities, and some of them made a tidy sum ...

During the afternoon of October 15th, the 'North Kent popcorn twins', Mick and Richard, enticed this first winter Caspian Gull down onto Dungeness beach. It was bearing a red Polish ring. For an hour it paraded in front of us, allowing close examination. Why not share in our good fortune and take a look - it's quite a striking bird.

Now that I am back from my stay on the shingle (the locks hadn't been changed, my wife still recognised me, all of my books and albums had not been sold) I can now fill out a few posts with some of the images obtained with the trusty bridge and compact cameras. First up is this rather fetching adult Caspian Gull which graced the beach during the afternoon of October 30th. It had been lured in by the 'chumming' activity of Mick Southcott and Richard Smith, who, together with Dave Walker and Martin Casemore, papped the life out of it with their big lenses. Each one of their blogs are present on my 'worthy blogs' list which can be found on the right - do take a look. Although I'm pleased with these images they are blown out of the water by theirs! I do realise that gulls are like Marmite and some visitors to this blog have already switched off, but if you do like them then I can promise you another post featuring a most showy first-winter Caspian. I bet you ca...

More fun on the beach with Mick S, Richard S, Dave W and Martin C, all very knowledgable gull-fondlers and exponents in the dark art of larid identification. I stood by and watched the growing throng of gulls coming into the bait of bread, popcorn and fish guts. Star draw was an obvious (even for me) adult Caspian Gull that Richard claimed to be the best adult he had seen at Dungeness. The Canon bridge camera once again proved its worth, but my four companions with their big lenses will have obtained far superior images. This made up for a flat morning - why spoil a sunny and mild morning by seeing anything of note? Images of this bird have been already been posted by Martin at: http://ploddingbirder.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/caspian-gull.html Others will soon appear from the Daves and Richard at: http://www.dungenessbirdobs.org.uk http://birdingthedayaway.blogspot.co.uk/ http://mybirdwatchingdaysout.blogspot.co.uk/ Take a look and learn!

One of those days that limped along in between bursts of excitement. Almost the first birds that I saw as I walked out of the observatory back door were a skein of 10 White-fronted Geese, that appeared to head straight out to sea. With a handful of Ring Ouzels being the only thing that kept the morning from stagnating, a cup of tea with Mark H on the moat seemed to be the best option. This cued up the next burst of excitement. Between sips of tea, we observed two grey geese heading our way, which soon showed themselves to be Bean Geese (also seen by David W, Gill H and Owen L). Not a common bird over observatory airspace! A calling Greenshank shortly afterwards was just as unexpected. The next quiet interlude was burst when, walking through an area of low broom, I flushed three roosting Short-eared Owls from the open shingle. All quickly settled and were left in peace. A phone call from Martin C alerted me to the fact that the gull boys, Mick S and Richard S, had lured a first-winter...

Am I one of the gull people? No, not really. I do look at them. Sometimes even actively seek them out. But to truly belong to that specialist group of birders you need to study them. And then study them again. Over. And over. And over. It isn't so much a passion, or an obsession, but more a disease. Gullitis? Larusgytis? There isn't really a name for it yet. Just to prove that I do dip my toe into this rarified world I present a few bridge camera images from Dungeness this autumn. The top three pictures are of a first-winter Caspian Gull and the bottom of an adult Caspian Gull, all on the beach. Even I can 'do' these individuals, but there are other birds that even the aficionados will screw their faces up at and proclaim that "there might be a bit of Herring Gull" in them. If you want professional quality images of gulls (especially Caspian) the net is swamped with them, but I can recommend Dungeness Bird Observatory , Ploddingbirder , Richard Smith a...

A sunny and mild day that at times put on hold the notion of the end of summer. A brief but welcome Dartford Warbler livened up a sluggish day at DBO, this female/immature playing hide-and-seek in the large stand of gorse out in the desert. Highlight was left until the fag-end of the afternoon, when I joined Dave W, Martin and Richard on the beach to observe the regular baiting for gulls that is carried out by Mick S and Richard S. A most showy first-winter Caspian Gull was a delight (even I could manage this individual) this bird spending quite a bit of time in our company, allowing close flight views and settling on the beach well within range of our assortment of cameras. See 'Ploddingbirder' and the Dungeness Bird Observatory blog/website for the images - mine will have to wait until I return home. A single Red Admiral and Hummingbird Hawk-moth were also recorded.

A grey, wet morning at Beddington Sewage Farm was enlivened by this adult Caspian Gull and two Firecrests. The crests have been present since December, but have been elusive. I was pleased to finally catch up with them.