Start fast... stall early

With the Mallard in the bag, New Years Day turned out to be less of a wash out than Met Error predicted, so a wee sojourn down to the patch was #ON to get the 2025 year list off to a flying start.

First bird on the list was Jackdaw, followed by Mute Swan... predictable gank mostly saw me hit the 40 species mark before leaving the lake. Key newsworthy points here were that the resident Whopper Schwan has once again picked up a winter buddy, there are now two (count 'em) Coots on the lake, and the December Lesser Scaup has decided to stick around for the New Year... which was good of it, in all fairness.

Things were about to get better though. With the tide well out, next stop was the gull roost at Blind Harbour, where I quickly banged in the usual suspects on the gull front. I scanned the larger gulls for potential yellow-legged or maybe a ring-billed, but no joy on that front. Then, on a whim, I had a look through the smaller gulls, naturally expecting them all to be black-headed.

My bins settled on a first winter bird, sittng on the gravel, its head tucked unhelpfully under its wing. It was noticeably smaller than the birds around it, and it just "felt" different. I got the scope out for a closer look. It helpfully stood up and had a look around. Pink legs, black bill. Boom! 1st winter Bonaparte's Gull in the bag. A full-fat Irish tick, no less!

Boni's in the bag!

When I say "in the bag" of course, I still needed to convince the self-appointed adjudicator of proceedings that I had, in fact, seen one. So I contacted Seppy -- who after the anticipated incredulous "What the f**k are you doing looking at gulls" rant turned up some 20 minutes later to validate the bird. 

By which time it had flown off, obviously. 

Luckily, as he was about to give up and dis the claim, a small gull flew in and landed right in front of him -- pink legs, black bill, distinctive wing pattern. Verified!

And a contender for (New) Ol' Snowy chalked up on the first day of the year. Happy daze!

With three more species added yesterday -- in the shape of Dunlin, Gannet and Chough --  (it's already hard work... *sigh*) that leaves me on 56 species or 43.19% for the year. A non-too-shabby start, all things considered. Not much left to get now until things start warming up though.

Ah well....

Last gasp full fat

A wee influx of black-headed & common gulls the other day had me out scanning from the magic patio, just in case. One adult common-type gull on the lagoon outflow caught my eye, with a good bill band and pale iris, I quickly twigged I was looking at my first ever ring-billed gull on the patch! Amayzing! As I was trying to work out the best way to try for shots, all the birds lifted, and although I was able to keep my eye on it, it drifted off over the lake and out of sight. Hopefully, it'll make another appearance in the not too distant future....

Crucially, this full-fat patch tick was just enough for me to clinch 3rd place on the podium too! Happy days!

off-patch twitching

Oooooooooooof!

A glaucous-winged gull yesterday

Which was nice.

kumliens on da patch

Ok so in this competition you don't get any bonus points for finding fancy-dan races or subspecies or the like but here's a coupla snaps of a 1st winter kumlien's gull at Galley this very am

Look at the primaries on that!

glauc

loads of gulls around today, sheltering from the gale - best of it was a huge glaucous gull which hung about for a while & dwarfed some black-heads. Also had a couple of schnipes too.

he's a big lad!

1 step forwards, 2 steps back

a bit of an up & down weekend so it was. Very calm both mornings so was hoping for at least a bit of local migration, if no stuff from further afield. But got nowt in the end. Have spent the last 2 weekend scouring de patch for stock doves - checking every woodpigeon - immensely dull. This has relevance to later in this sorry tale.

Yesterday i spent ages watching some trees cos i thought I'd seen a spot fly at distance. It never reappeared. Immensely dull.

Then I got home and found this on the lake

a yellow-legged gull yesterday (allegedly)

Exactly! Clearly an obvious yellow-legged gull! Except they all flushed and then i got on an LBB and then got confused, which I still am. Yellow-legged gull would be a patch tick, and, as I am ultra-squeaky-clean when it comes to me patch list, I don't think I can have this as I don't know any of the features. Except it looked like a dark-backed herring gull with yellow legs and a big beak. So I don't know. Its in the "Pending" file, although Big Gav (who once kind of partook in the Golden Mallard challenge, factfans) was threatening to send the boys round if I claim it - he knows about gulls, you see.

Anyway, the upshot and tremendous climax to this long & harrowing tale of woe is that whilst I was dicking around trying to scope the gull, 2 stock doves flew thru the scope! Year tick! Whoop! No more looking at pigeons for the rest of the year! SCORE!!!!!

Velveteen

Finally glimpsed the velvet scoter from de patch this am, which was a full fat patch tick (up to 194 now!), plus got iceland gull from de hoose this eve - 2 year tick day - gotta love it!

white-winga

A glaucous gull graced me patch this morning - tad damp tho, as the following record shot will verify!

A wet glauc earlier

Another handy for the year tho!