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Here is a short video of the an Interesting Gull which showed characteristics of a third winter Caspian Gull at Watermead CP South, Leicester a couple of weeks ago.

Here is a few flight shots of the adult Caspian Gull I saw yesterday at Watermead CP South . Also for some strange reason, this bird seems to favour Watermead CP at weekends, as I have now seen this bird for the last three weekends!!  

Here is a few shots of the adult Caspian Gull at Watermead CP South  late last month.    

Here is the latest visible migration figures from Watermead CP South which I did yesterday. The highlights included a fly-by Red Kite over Birstall and a brief adult Caspian Gull on the island around midday: http://www.trektellen.nl/trektelling.asp?telpost=810 Here is a few record shots of the Caspian Gull Returning in the afternoon I then found three ringed Black-headed Gulls  near the car park which included JAN4 and J2KT and the Lithuanian bird which was at Watermead CP earlier in the year!        

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:

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 wint...

Record shot of the Adult Caspian Gull! With a couple of hours spare yesterday morning I nipped over to Watermead CP South as usual to check the gulls. I have noticed over the last few weeks that for some reason the gulls numbers increase over the weekend. It's probably due to most of  the tips closed and plenty of food around the car park!? Well checking the main island I noticed straight away that it had another Adult Caspian Gull on it!! This was the third sighting of a Caspian Gull in just over a week, so I have now found the second, third and fourth record for the city. With it still being a description species for VC55, I took a few record shots of the bird from the nearby shoreline and let a few people know of the sighting. Looking at the Casper I thought it looked very much like the bird I had found the previous year, so it maybe a returning bird? With Caspian and Yellow-legged Gull now firmly ticked off on the city list it would be nice if we could now have a Med...

Ok you wait years for one to turn up and then you have two turn up in a week! What are talking about Dave?... Well yesterday after finishing the early shift at the General I was down again at Watermead CP South to check on the Gulls in the car park and to see if any large Gulls were on the island. Not much in the car park except for courting Asian couples, the odd dope smoker and the long staying V028 and JAN4 ringed Black-headed Heads! On the main island I noticed a good number of  Lesser Black-backed Gulls ,  Herring Gulls  and what looked like a  1st winter Caspian Gull !?! Well to cut a long story short, I took a few shots of the bird and when I got home I did a bit of research on the net. Please see the photos attached: Comments are welcome on the ID of the bird! 1st Winter Caspian Gull on the main island@ Watermead! 1st Winter Caspian Gull@Watermead CP South (on the left) The casper is the one next to the goose!

Following on with the sighting of the Caspian Gull @ Watermead CP South yesterday, more birds were added to my city year list over the last week. These came in form of a calling Water Rails in the reed bed near the mammoth viewpoint. Up to three Crossbills calling over the mammoth on the 20th and 22nd, two Yellow-legged Gulls (Fourth-winter bird and an adult) on the main lake and of course the Caspian Gull yesterday! With these sightings I am now on 125 species for the city boundaries!?! 

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!

2nd winter Caspian Gull Watermead CP South Funny looking Herring Gull! Back view of the Casper! Herring Gull species! Front view of the Casper! Funny looking Herring Gull species! With my new camera in toe I nipped down to Watermead CP South for a spot of digiscoping. Meeting up with John Hague in the car park, we checked out the pits for the long staying Pintail and maybe a singing Cetti's Warbler for the City list challenge. John couldn't stay long due to a previous engagement but we were out of luck for the time being with the Cetti's and Pintail no show! Leaving John I walked round the southern edge of the park scanning the wildfowl and then on to the mammoth viewpoint. Viewing from the mammoth I noticed a strange goose on the island which looked like a Pink-footed Goose ?, but I needed a better view. So walking back towards the car park I scanned the island for the dodgy goose, when suddenly a gull looking very much like a Caspian Gull type landed next to the ge...

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 ...

Over the last few days I been looking at more gulls at Watermead CP and Shawell Balancing Lake. Here is a few shots of the gulls I have seen. Caspian Gull? at Shawell Black-headed Gulls at Watermead CP South. Caspian Gull at Watermead CP south with Black-headed and Common Gulls.

Here is a few shots of the adult Caspian Gull I found this morning at Watermead CP South. This is probably a first for the Soar Valley!

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...

With the last count of the month, Vis-migging from the Mammoth watch point was actually very quiet and not much was moving. The only highlight of the morning was an Little Egret flying north @ around 7.50am. The full details for the watch can be found here:  http://www.trektellen.nl/trektelling.asp?telpost=810&site=0&land=5&taal=2&datum=20101031 Due to an adult Franklin's Gull dodging the county border in nearby Derbyshire and roosting at Foremark Reservoir for a few nights, I checked out Albert Village Lake (AVL) again in the hope that the gull would appear here? However the gull had other ideas and at the moment still refuses to cross the county boundary! So the two days I was at AVL last week I found a 1st winter Med Gull ,an adult Caspian Gull and at least two adult Yellow-legged Gulls in the large gull flock. A couple shots of the adult Caspian Gull at AVL.

Here is a few more shots of the "Probable" Mew Gull at Albert Village Lake. The bird was seen again this morning around 10.30am by Andy Forryan and Ben Croxtall, but I missed it by a few minutes! Other sightings I saw during the morning and early afternoon included a nice looking adult Caspian Gull , one summer plumaged Med Gull, a brief adult Kittiwake and an assortment of well-known faces!?!

It's mid-week again so off I went to Shawell GPs to check out the gulls. The motive behind this was because of a 1st winter/Juvenile Glaucous Gull had been reported at Draycote Water, Warwickshire the previous day and as most of the gulls which roost at Draycote Water feed just across the county border at Shawell tip, so you can see the reason behind this. So arriving at the A5 pool at around 10.15am I was soon scanning the gulls by the busy roadside. Almost immediately I noticed the long-staying 2nd winter Med Gull and then the prize of the morning the Juvenile Glaucous Gull feeding and bathing by the shoreline. GET IN!!! Although it wasn't a first for the site, this sighting was probably the first at this site for over ten years!? ( 14/3/10: Actually having a better looked at my photos I now think the bird is a large Juvenile Iceland Gull!! and I made a basic mistake and jumped to the wrong conclusion ). As usual I made a few phone calls to let people know about the sight...