I arrived at the bottom of Hackney Lane at 14:30 and the tide was very low. A quick look up towards Coombe Cellars showed large amounts of large gulls on the mud flats. I scanned through for any obvious white wingers, and for some reason I didn't decide to walk down to Netherton Point to take a closer look, but instead to walk up river to get a better view of the birds off Passage House. This proved to be a good decision because I soon picked out what looked like an adult Ring-billed Gull in a small flock of Black-headed Gulls.
It had just a shade darker mantle colour than the Black-headed Gulls with no obvious tertial crescent, a chunky bill with a thick black ring across, and I thought I could just about detect a pale iris. I digiscoped a quick record shot and walked closer just to be 100% sure of the ID before putting news out, and sure enough it had an obvious pale iris! A lifer for me! I phoned Will and texted Kev and Mark (thanks for putting the news out Mark). Pretty annoying using a phone when the screen is wet and doesn't respond! Here are some photos of it...
Will quickly arrived at Passage House (other side of the river to me) and I directed him to where it was. Then Kev turned up and also got on the bird. It remained settled in the same place for 30 minutes and then suddenly took off and flew down river showing nice black wing tips with only a short black mirror on P10. I lost it to view, and that was the last I saw of it despite scanning through the gull flocks off Coombe Cellars a few times. Kev's going to be on the look out for it on the Salty so hopefully he'll relocated it, and it would be nice if it stayed on the estuary into the New Year!
Comparing the photos with Mike's bird at Goodrington, it looks as if it's the same individual, so sadly not a self find for me, but just as exciting!
After it had flown off, I had a call from Will to say that there was a Common Seal on the mud bank right in front of the car park at Passage House! Amazingly an even rarer sight than Ring-billed Gull! I think the last record of Ring-billed Gull was around 2005, and before then the Teign was probably the best place to see the species in the country with multiple birds on the estuary every winter. Sadly I wasn't old enough to go birding back then!
Well done Laurie - excellent work and some good photos too. I agree it looks like the same bird based on head spots, wing spots and bill colour /markings. There are all sorts of 'rules' one or two follow to 'allow' a previously known bird as a self find - or not and several in the county use these rules to add extra birds to their own found lists that others have found - like you and most others in the county my conscience would not have allowed me to count it as a self find either - I'm sure you'll get one, one day Laurie you deserve it, and I'm sure seeing this bird would have given you a buzz! Make sure you get the record of the Common Seal off to the Devon Bio-diversity Records centre they are rare in the county.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your kind comments Mike - even though I knew there was a chance of getting it on patch I really wasn't expecting it! I've enjoyed reading the thread on the Devon Birds forum on the subject of self finds - some good stories of near misses! I've sent the Common Seal record in - never thought I'd see one so far up river!
ReplyDelete