Kumlien's

Went up to North Uist and saw the Harlequin Duck that's been up there nearly a week now. 

Looked seriously cool when it got out on the rocks!

Stunning bird and more on that later however for now I am going to post more gull photos....


After walking away from the duck Me and Ollie Metcalf found this stunner

Juv Kumlien's Gull!

Cracking trip!

Caspian no.6

Yes another post on gulls.... I make no apologies!

Chris managed to find another! 1w Caspian Gull in York 2 days ago, taking the tally upto 6!

He kindly sent me some photos on to post up

Although hard to see in these photos the bird had a yellow darvic ring on its right leg, showing that it had more than likely came from Poland!

On top of this we seem to have had an influx of white-wingers in the last week with a tally after today of 4-5 Glaucous Gulls all juvs and 3+ Iceland Gulls (4w, 2w and 1+ juvs) also an Adult at Wheldrake the other night increases the York area total by another and completes the age categories for the area, Kumlein's next? That Anglers adult would be nice!

Also got to see this last weekend

Nice bird

Also I have set up a Twitter feed for York area Local, Scare and Rare bird news, follow @Yorkbirding to receive these tweets, link here https://twitter.com/YorkBirding

Cach Review

So with yet another Caspian Gull in York yesterday! I decided to do a review showing all the different birds that between me, Chris Gomersall, Ollie Metcalf and Andy Walker we have managed to pick out of the 10,00 gulls that have been visiting Rufforth Tip

As the viewing conditions don't allow for precise feather detail to be photographed and so compare individual birds this way, the best way I think to tell individual birds from each other are on the amount of white on the tertials and the facial profile.

Bird no.1 has a very petite facial profile and a nice thin white line on the tertial fringe.

Bird no.2 has a very elongated facial profile and a fairly thick lip on the tertial fringe

Bird no.3 has a elongated facial profile and barely any white on the tertial fringe

Bird no.4 has a moderate facial profile and a thin white line on the tertial fringe

On this basis bird 1 and 4 seem the most similar. However I think that size compared to the Herring Gulls around them and having spoken to Chris I believe that they are indeed different birds.

And in this...

And that makes 5 different birds!

With hindsight we have discussed the adult that we claimed on 10/01 and have decided that it probably wasn't one after all and so won't be submitting it.

Having had a look at the birds in Sheffield, if I understand correctly they've had;

2x 1w

2w

3w

3x ad

The 2w is deffinatley different to the York bird and the latest first winter (photos here ) has not been seen in York, however the previous 1w may have been, its not bird 1, but I wouldn't like to say if it is one of the others.

Still plenty of time to find some more this winter!

Just goes to show that these birds were having in York will probably turn out to be the 4th-8th accepted records for the York area!!! MEGA!

YNU Reports

As part of my final year at the University of York I am currently undertaking a project to look at Yellow-browed Warbler occurrences in Yorkshire, as such I need as much data as possible on the status of Yellow-browed Warblers in Yorkshire.

Therefore I need to borrow back copies of the Yorkshire Naturalist Union Bird Reports. I will only need them for a few days whilst I copy out the YBW data and I'm willing to travel to collect and return the copies.

So it would be a massive help if anyone who has the following copies could contact me on my email address

timmyjones1234 at hotmail dot com

1988-1992

1984

1981-82

1978

1970-76

Any pre 1964