NORTH DOWNS & BEYOND

So, that's the first month of the year already over - went quick, didn't it! It was also the first month of the great year-long Surrey v Northumberland patch challenge, in which I have taken on Stewart Sexton to see who can attain the highest percentage figure of our personal historic totals. It's all a bit of fun, but it really does act as a spur to get you out there and looking. I do have a distinct advantage in being retired (I still cannot get used to saying that) but then he can boast coastline and slightly younger eyes which will surely make up for my extra hours in the field... As I have moaned about elsewhere, the number of birds present locally has been very poor indeed. Passerines in particular have gone missing in action, with the star flock being the 110+ Skylarks that are being faithful to Walton Downs. Although the weather has turned colder during the past few days, it has been largely unremarkable and the lack of movement unsurprising. Down to th...

The early birder certainly does catch the worm Glaucous Gull. The second-winter beast that has been feeding/loafing during the day at the Beddington Landfill Cafe has decided to take up overnight lodgings on Mercer's Lake at Holmethorpe. It was reported coming into roost yesterday afternoon so I knew that an early arrival should secure the bird - it was, after all, a species that I had not seen before at Holmethorpe. I arrived in darkness, but still set up the scope and scanned the blackness - there were gulls already flying overhead and much calling from the water - and even in what could at best be described as pre-light, the gulls were shining out as they bobbed about on the lake surface. One bird shone out far more than the others - the Glaucous Gull (pictured above). I'm sure you can all tell which bird it is... The gull roost was quite spectacular, with 2,500 Herring and 1,500 Black-headed making up 99% of the larids on show. The birds were leaving very quickly, w...

This morning I took a trip to one of my old stamping grounds, Beddington Sewage Farm. If I'm being honest, due to the presence of a Glaucous Gull I panicked and went early, as I have a visit already lined up to the farm this coming Thursday. I had yet to record this species at Beddington - and, as a big bonus, it was also a Uber patch tick! For some reason Glaucous Gulls have eluded me locally, whereas Icelands have been easier to come by: 1994      Mercer’s Farm, Holmethorpe              An adult roosting on the fields on 2 January  1997      Mercer’s Lake, Holmethorpe              An adult at first light on 1 January, apparently having roosted overnight with several thousand other gulls 2010      Beddington SF            ...

On the 27th May, Dominic Mitchell found a first-summer Glaucous Gull at 'The Patch', Dungeness. This was soon photographed by local laridophiles Dave Walker and Martin 'Ploddingbirder' Casemore. Both the DBO website and Martin's blog published several images of the bird that evening. On 29th May the gull was still present and was still considered to be a Glaucous. However, by 30th May, and with further field observation, Dave was not so happy with its identification, and stated that he felt the bird was more likely to be an Iceland. Martin, on the other hand, was still in the Glaucous camp, although did admit that this individual was "odd and not the normal brute of a bird associated with Glaucous." Yesterday Martin posted further images of the gull, plus a video, to which he commented that "in the video it appears to (be) an Iceland Gull, yet yesterday's images seem to me to lean towards Glaucous." On the same day, the DBO website was r...

I'm currently reading Robert Macfarlanes's excellent book ' The Old Ways ' (and a gushing review will appear soon). In it he writes about the Gannet colony on Sula Sgeir and the presence, for a few years, of a Black-browed Albatross. This particular individual was already well-known to the birding fraternity, having been present on Bass Rock in 1967, then relocated in 1972 at Hermaness, staying for twenty years before disappearing once again, only to resurface at Sula Sgeir between 2005 and 2007. He was named Albert Ross and caused many a birder to head north for a tick. This reminded me of another bird that stayed around long enough to be given a name - and that was George the Glaucous Gull, who haunted the north Norfolk coast between Cley and Salthouse between the early 1960s and early 1980s. I saw him in 1977 and felt as if I was meeting a proper celebrity - I bet there are a few birders out there who stared at him through their optics and felt that they were in th...