Gull masterclass: Stubber's Green, West Midlands

-
On Saturday I attended Martin Garner's of Birding Frontier's fame Gull master-class at Stubber's Green,Walsall, West Midlands.
As usual with Martin's classes there are very informative and a great experience when watching the very misunderstood larger gulls complex.
Although I didn't see any white-wingers at Stubber's Green, I did improve my knowledge on the tricky 1st winter Yellow-legged Gulls and 2nd winter Caspian Gulls, when Martin picked them out in the sizeable gull flock. What was also interested to note was the number of "Northern" Herring Gulls at this site. I now believe that the majority of the Herring Gulls which occur in the Midlands during the winter are of the " Northern" race (Argentatus).
So in conclusion if you have the chance to go on one of Martin's classes and have the same addiction for gulls as myself, I couldn't recommend it more highly!
Which one is the unusual gull?...
Ok it's a 1st winter Yellow-legged Gull behind
the two 2nd winter Northern Herring Gulls on the foreshore!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ring-billed Gull OMFL!!!

-
Image
Meeting up with Neil Hagley this afternoon at Shawell Balancing Lake almost the first gull I looked at was an Adult Ring-Billed Gull . Just to make sure I wasn't hallucinating I ask Neil to have a look at this gull in my scope and he came to the same conclusion. GET IN!!! So over the next half an hour we ticked off all the salient features of the bird and then phoned out the news. As this was probably only the sixth record for Leicestershire and Rutland as you can imagine I took quite a few digishots of the gull. Joined later by the Groby crew (Allen, Andy F and Paul) just before the Ring-billed Gull flew off towards the tip, it wasn't long before the group picked at least 3 Yellow-legged Gulls and 3 Caspian Gulls (2 Adults and 1 2nd-winter bird) in the large gull flock. So to put this sighting of the Ring-billed Gull in context, it's probably only the sixth time it has been recorded in the county.It was a county tick for myself, Neil and the Groby crew and Ring-billed G
Read more

A few bird photos over the last few months...

-
Image
 Over the last year I bought myself a new Leica lens (100-400mm) for my Panasonic Lumix G9 Camera, so here's a few photos I have taken over the last few months. First up the long staying Lesser Yellowlegs at Frampton Marsh RSPB. Next up the Northern Waterthrush at Heyford, Essex...    and finally for the time being one of the Yellow-browed Warbler at Oakthorpe, Leicestershire in Early January 2024.
Read more

Cut End Seawatch, Lincs 16th Sept 2009.

-
After finishing my early shift at the general, I drove over to Cut End, which is the Witham/Wash river mouth(Basically were the river meets the sea!), near Boston, Lincs. I was told that the the best time to go was around hide tide with a north-east blow to push the birds close towards the river mouth. Arriving at the Cut End Hide at around 5.00pm in the middle of high tide, I joined the group of birders who watching the sea. My sightings of the next couple of hours included: 16 Arctic Skuas, 1 Bonxie, 1 Fulmar, 10+ Sandwich Terns, at least 30+ Eiders, a single Common Scoter (10 metres off the hide!) and good numbers of the usual waders. Scanning the nearby salt marshes I also picked up at least 7 Marsh Harriers , and over 40 Little Egrets . Although I couldn't pick up the long staying King Eider at this site due to the choppy conditions I was pleased what I had seen at this new site for me and would visit it again as soon as possible. As I walked back to the car the final sightin
Read more