Russell Slack

Thought I'd put a quick note on here to make sure anyone who wants to come to Russell Slack's funeral tomorrow knows the details;

Russell's funeral will take place on Friday 15th March at 1pm(tomorrow), at St. Helen's Church, Wheldrake and afterwards a celebration of his life at the Swallow Hotel, Crockey Hill Golf Course

At Russell's request no black/tie or suits. Please come casually dressed.

Donations will be taken for Macmillans and local Wheldrake Trust (details to follow, but to involve support for the LDV and academic courses involving Ornithology).

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

Interesting Iceland

Found the 2w Iceland that I first saw on Rufforth airfield on 12/01, at Hes East this afternoon! Was only about 20 other large gulls present!

Managed to get some better views and photos of it and it look fairly dark? Opinions welcomed

All shots have only been cropped, click on them to view larger

More Caspian

Went to the Rufforth/Poppleton area this afternoon to stare and some more gulls again, but with better results than yesterday!

Getting to Poppleton there were several hundered large gulls in a field at SE.553.533 where after scanning through several times I picked out an interesting looking second winter bird. I observed this bird for around 5 mins before it flew off towards the tip.

During the time I watched it, it remained frustraitingly distant so I couldn't get any photos, luckily however it reappeared later in a field off the A1237 at SE.558.498 where I was able to get the following photos

What stood out the most in this bird when I first got onto it was its head. A long straight bill with an all white head and sloping forehead instantly got me interested. Further observations showed amongst other features

• Long pink legs
• Small mirror in p10
• very pale underwing
• dark tail band set against pale upper tail/coverts
• largely dark tertials with a white rim (much broader than a 1w bird)

Extremely pleased with a second sighting allowing me to get photos!

Also present in the same flock as the Caspian was this 3w Iceland gull

They were both viewable in one scope view at one point! This photo shows the Iceland in the far right of the shot and the Caspian in the lower left with its wings open!

So that takes York's total of Caspians upto 4, can we catch Sheffields 7? Only time will tell!

North Duffield Aythya sp

An afternoon spent in the LDV was pretty successful, highlights being an Aythya sp (see below) a brief Green Winged Teal (that I didn't see!) a sub adult male Hen Harrier! (2 in 2 weeks in York after none at all last year!) 2 Bewick's Swans (one with yellow darvic on leg same as original 2 found by Andy) Marsh Harrier, Peregrine, lots of ducks and waders!

The bird is a first winter drake and on first look is a drake Scaup type (ie grey vermiculations on back, largely white flank patches) which is what I first called it as when I saw it. However looking at it in more detail I soon realised that it was no bigger than the Tufted Ducks and had a peak to its head (not what I'd expect from a Greater Scaup) so we started thinking along the lines of Lesser Scaup or hybrid.

Unfortunately by this stage the sun had dissapeared behind a blanket of cloud and the light was fading, the bird was present in the large patch of open water on the other side of the Carrs so probably nearly 1km away!

Prolonged viewing of the bird allowed us to note the following features

Obvious peak to the head set towards the back of the head (no crest)

Same size as Tufted Ducks smaller than the Pochards

Black on tip seemed to be visible from the side profile, but not seen when bird faced towards me(difficult to work out due to range). When compared with Tufted Ducks there was a lot less black, but I would not like to say if this soley was restricted to the nail or not

Slightly paler band on the bill around the nail, not clear cut like a Ring-necked Duck more faded

Vermiculations fairly obvious on mantle

Brown markings on rear of white flank patch

The wing pattern was not seen. It did a wing flap twice in the 3 hours that I watched it for but both times it was facing towards me and so I was unable to see if the white extended from the secondaries into the primaries.

So to break it down, it looks good for Lesser Scaup overall however there are 2 features that I want to see better before it can be clinched as one, the nail pattern and the wing pattern. Hopefully in better light tomorrow this will be possible. I will be there from early tomorrow, fingers crossed!

Didn't manage to get any photos due to light and distance but will try tomorrow.

Anyone with experience of aythya hybrids and distant Lesser Scaups please comment! Only drake I've seen was an adult at basically point blank range compared with this bird!