Avez-Vous un Cuppa?

Following on from an excellent id section in Martin Garner's Birding Frontiers blog about Caspian Gulls. I decided to revisit some photos I took last year of the Caspian-type gulls at Watermead CP South and Albert Village Lake. I am now happy with the intial ID of these birds and maybe I should be more confident on my own convinctions! Here is a few shots of the birds I have been talking about:

Here is a few record shots of the Juvenile/1st winter Iceland Gull and 1st winter Caspian Gull I saw at Albert Village Lake on Tuesday (22/3/11). 1st winter Caspian Gull at AVL Another shot of the Casper! Juvenile/1st winter Iceland Gull at AVL Another shot of the Iceland Gull!

Before work yesterday I drove over to Albert Village Lake to see if the Juvenile Iceland Gull was about? Once again only a small number of gulls were on the lake, so I decided to check out the tip nearby. Scanning the tip it wasn't long before I found the Juvenile/1st winter Iceland Gull loafing on the tip face. As usual I took a few record shots of the bird. With the time against me due to work commitments I didn't really have time to check the other gulls. Over this weekend I will be checking a new landfill site just over the border into Lincolnshire with Steve James, so I will let you know what we see?   Juvenile Iceland Gull Albert Village tip

Here is a few record shots of the Glaucous Gull I saw at Albert Village Lake on the 9th.

Here is some video footage of the 3rd winter Glaucous Gull at Albert Village Lake I took yesterday. Enjoy!

Today I bought myself a late Christmas present in the form of the Nikon Coolpix S4000 for a spot of digiscoping! Although I need to figure out how to work the camera, this afternoon I filmed the long staying 3rd winter Glaucous Gull at Albert Village Lake. Other sightings on the lake included at least two adult Caspian Gulls and two  Yellow-legged Gulls (Adult and 2nd winter birds). Over the next few weeks hopefully the filming and digishots should get better?!

Over the last couple of days I've have been gull watching at Shawell GPs in the south of the county and Albert Village Lake and Tip in the north-west. At Shawell I found 2 Caspian Gulls (adult and 2nd winter birds) in the fields opposite the balancing lake (Ok it was in Warwickshire, but there did fly back into Leicestershire later!) Today I checked out Albert Village Lake and the tip and again for some reason, there was hardly any gulls on the lake. So once again I looked over the tip from Pick Wood. Although most of the gulls were a good distance away, after a few scans I picked up a 3rd winter Glaucous Gull on the banks of the tip. It was probably the bird I saw last week at Foremark Resv and as usual a took a few record shots of the bird. After that I phoned and texted the news out of the bird. So not a bad haul for the year so far, two white-wingers and at least four different Caspers in the space of a week! 3rd winter Glaucous Gull at Albert Village Tip. Adult Caspian ...

Yesterday I went to Albert Village Lake for my first visit of the year, and strangely there were hardly any gulls on the lake. So to cut a long story short I went and explored the nearby tip which you can look over via the local footpaths. Noticing that most of the gulls were at the far end of the tip I retraced my steps and then walked back towards the nearby national forest land which overlooks the tip. I started to scan the gulls from this viewpoint but nothing stood out except for a gull showing characteristics of Glaucous x Herring type!   With the gulls moving around the tip all the time, I then noticed more gulls roosting on a nearby bank and a very creamy looking gull which was head on to me at the time. I thought straight away that this bird looked good to be an Iceland Gull, due to the size and plumage of the bird. I waited for the bird to move and slowly it showed itself and the diagnostic features I saw included pure white primaries, blotchy creamy-white breast, ...

Following news on Saturday evening of a Laughing Gull at Foremark Reservoir in nearby Derbyshire, I decided to check out Albert Village Lake, as the bird might drop in to this site the next day?! So over a couple of hours looking at the gulls, there was no sign of the Laughing Gull but I did find 2 Adult Caspian Gulls and a single Adult Yellow-legged Gull . Trying to digiscope the gulls I had forgotten to put my flashcard back into the camera, so no photos of the birds! Bugger!!, and as I know that Caspian Gull is a description species for Leicestershire the best I could do was try and film them with my mobile phone!! So below is my efforts! Walking back to the car I noticed a flock of birds land in nearby trees and then the unmistakeable sounds of Waxwings calling! Get In!! Watching the flock by the main road I noted at least 13 birds feeding on the nearby Rowan bushes before there moved off again towards the village. On this note I called it a day and drove...

Here is more shots of the "probable" Mew Gull I watched again with Allen Pocock, Richard Lowe,and from Cumbria Tristan Reid( http://www.binocularface.co.uk/ ) yesterday. Commenting about the gull I know believe this bird is probably a Mew Gull but "Heinei"(Siberian Common Gull) may not be ruled out? One thing I do believe is that it's not a retarded plumaged European Common Gull (Larus canus)!! Any way if you are interesting in Gulls I would suggest you go and see this bird as you will very surprised what it looks like, how it acts and just the general jizz of this bird and that includes supposed gull experts from Rutland and Norfolk !! Changing the subject slightly over the last couple of days I finally hit the magic target of 100 species in the Soar Valley Challenge. This came in the form of one Sand Martin over the Sand Martin bank at Watermead CP North and a nice looking male Scaup on the Key Lakes at Watermead CP Birstall. So just under 40 species to go f...

With the interest of the Mew Gull at Albert Village at the moment I have included a few links which might be helpful? http://www.pbase.com/jpkln/mew http://bobduckhouses.blogspot.com/2010/03/leicestershire-gull.html http://www.surfbirds.com/blog/archie69asbo/14733/Probable+MEW+GULL+in+Leicestershire+-+15032010.html http://gonebirding.webs.com/apps/blog/show/3119091-albert-village-lake-12th-march-2010 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqGnEeOBYiM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mvkBA2RTy8&feature=related http://www.flickr.com/groups/nagulls/pool/ Other sightings I saw yesterday at Albert Village Lake including the two long-staying Med Gulls and at least one 3rd Winter Yellow-legged Gull .

Following information from Richard Lowe about an unusual gull at Albert Village Lake late last week, so with my day off from work I spent most of the day at this site. The bird in question was a Common Gull-type which showed characteristics of Mew Gull (the American version of Common Gull).Arriving around 10.15am I met up with Steve Lister and Roger Davis who were already at the site and were slowly scanning the group of gulls. So far there had seen two corking Adult Mediterranean Gulls in the group but not yet the strange gull! Noting the Med Gulls in the flock, I tried to take a few shots of the Med Gulls but as usual just when I was focusing on the Gulls, there flew off towards the tip! Over the period of the morning we were joined by a few birders which included Allen Pocock and Andy Forryan and Richard Lowe, who had found the interesting gull the previous Thursday. The Med Gulls were seen again and a coloured ringed Common Gull was also noted on the island, but it wasn't un...

Here is a couple of more shots of the adult Mediterranean Gull at Albert Village Lake I saw on Thursday morning. The bird is now coming into summer plumage...

Adult Med Gull coming into Summer plumage. Adult Caspian Gull. With my day off yesterday I spent most of the day at Albert Village Lake to watch the gulls coming and going from the lake to the nearby tip. Over the few hours I was at this site I noted at least one adult Caspian Gull and the long-staying adult Mediterranean Gull (which is now coming into summer plumage).

Two shots of the Adult Med Gull at Albert Village Lake. "Jocky" Scottish-ringed Cormorant. Following information from Raymond Duncan via the Grampian Ringing group the Scottish-ringed Cormorant or "Jocky" for short has returned to Watermead CP for its third winter! Please see the link for the story so far.... Also before returning to work on the Tuesday, I nipped over to Albert Village Lake on the Monday and got a few more shots of the Adult Mediterranean Gull .

Adult Caspian Gull. 2nd Winter Caspian Gull. 2nd winter Glaucous Gull. Nipped over to Albert Village Lake again this morning and met up with Ben Croxtall and Andy Forryan. As the fog and mist slowly lifted we soon started picking up a good selection of large gulls. Over the next couple of hours we saw at least three Caspian Gulls ( 2 adult birds and a 2nd-winter bird ), the long-staying Mediterranean Gull , one adult Yellow-legged Gull and probably the highlight of the day the returning 2nd winter Glaucous Gull . I took a number of shots of the different gulls and came to the conclusion that the 2nd winter Glaucous Gull was a different bird from the one I had seen at this site previously in early January 2010. So back to work on tuesday and over the next couple of days I will spend more time down the Soar Valley as at the moment I have got my fix of gulls for at least a week!!

Adult Med Gull at Albert Village Lake. Over the last few days I have been spending my time between the Soar Valley, Albert Village Lake and Shawell GPs. As usual with watching the gulls at Albert Village Lake and Shawell it has been a little bit hit or miss. The highlights have included a nice looking Adult Mediterranean Gull at Albert Village on the 3rd and 4th a ringed Lesser Black-backed Gull and an unusually dark-looking gull?! at Shawell on the 3rd. Down on the local patch I had a couple of more ticks in the shape of a female Yellowhammer in the maize fields next to Cossington South GPs and then a Little Egret feeding in the ditches on the tern pool at Cossington Meadows. Seeing these two birds my year list is now on 91 species and probably draws me level with John?

Here's a few more shots of some Yellow-Legged Gulls I have seen over the last couple of days at Albert Village Lake ( and a shot of the number of gulls on the frozen lake!).

I finally connected with the 2nd winter Glaucous Gull at Albert Village Lake yesterday and here is some record shots of the bird. I think the bird spends quite a bit of time on the nearby tip as it took me over an hour to find the bird in the freezing conditions.

2nd Winter Kumlien's Gull at Shawell. Another shot of the Kumlien's Gull. 1st winter Iceland Gull at Shawell Balancing Lake. Another shots of the 1st winter Iceland Gull. Over the last couple of months it has been a great winter for seeing and finding white winged gulls like Iceland Gull and Glaucous Gull. As I normally recieved most of the local bird records for the fieldnotes in the LROS newsletter, it has been interesting reading over the last month or so. Up to the present day so far at least ten Iceland Gulls , 1 Kumlien's Gull and maybe 3 different Glaucous Gulls have been recorded in Leicestershire? With hopefully a couple of more weeks to check the local tips before most of the gulls disperse to there breeding grounds I would imagine a few more white-winged gulls maybe found?