Small gulls

With the South Africa series of blog posts currently languishing in development hell (various parts written; most photos edited but just a total lack of time to pull things together), I think a quick patch update is probably needed in the interim. I am not birding that much at the moment but despite only visiting Port Meadow once or twice a week some interesting birds are still turning up. The whole area is extremely flooded at the moment and it is quite unusual how prolonged these conditions have been. Not great for the goose influx as there isn't much grass for them to hang around on but the roost is pretty good and I'm always hopeful of some rarer waterfowl brought down by the meadow's temporary transformation into "lake mode".

As well as the usual Caspian Gulls an adult Mediterranean Gull has been regularly roosting - presumably now that spring is getting underway we'll see a few more of these as their passage through the county peaks in March. I had a quick cycle along the Thames Path after work in the pouring rain on 6th February and found an adult Little Gull resting on a narrow strip of land between the swollen river and meadow floods, perhaps brought in by strong easterlies. Pleased with only my third winter record of this species on the patch, and although I had the camera with me I chose not to get it out for photos due to the rain - common sense has finally won out!

On 12th February I had an extended late afternoon session scanning through all the wildfowl and Black-headed Gulls with limited success. Viewing was difficult with birds spread over a huge area of floods and most being very distant - I was viewing from the Thames path and it was quite a trek just to get there due to flooding across the route. Six Oystercatchers along the river were good to see and were my first of the year. I was just about to leave when all of the gulls were put up by something and  I noticed a white dot in the distance, beneath the rest of the birds and flying differently to everything else. For some reason I knew almost instantly that it was a Kittiwake, although had to spend the next 30 seconds trying to get optics on it before managing to persuade myself that that was indeed what this speck was. Luckily it soon flew closer and I was treated to the wonderful sight of an adult Kittiwake circling the floods for several minutes before landing opposite me a few hundred metres away. It was absolutely luminescent in the low evening sun.

I feel like these photos (despite not exactly being frame-fillers) really illustrate how the shape of an adult Kittiwake is so distinctive. Those black wing-tips blend perfectly into the darker surrounds, giving the wing a strange spoon-like appearance - somewhat reminiscent of a giant Little Gull in this lighting!

The bird was just north of Burgess gate and would be easily viewable from there so I put the news out, but unfortunately it soon drifted into the mass of Black-headed Gulls loafing on the water and I ended up losing it before the first twitchers arrived. No one else connected, although it was apparently still there late into the evening as I heard it call a couple of times as all the gulls were flushed. A first-winter Little Gull also made a very brief appearance, seen in flight amongst the Black-headed Gulls (more on that later!).

Now I had hoped that the story of this Kittiwake would end there, but sadly this was not the case. It was nowhere to be seen on the meadow the next morning although people looking for it did discover a patch rarity - Pochard - which sadly flew off before I was able to twitch it for my year list. By mid morning, however, reports came in of a moribund adult Kittiwake sat on the causeway at Farmoor which was almost certainly the same bird. It ended up on the grass off of the southern bank of F2, being mobbed by a Red Kite and corvids, before Adam arrived and dutifully rescued it.

Phone pic courtesy of Mario Garcia

"By the time I got there it had flopped out onto the grass where it was looking exhausted so I decided to pick it up and take it to a wildlife rescue centre. I didn't have anything to carry it in so decided to take off my old jumper and used that to drop over it. I was then able to pick it up, wrap up its wings in the jumper so it wouldn't struggle and then placed my cap to cover its head, hoping that being in the dark would mean it was be calmer - the latter only with limited success. Back at the car I gently placed the bird, still wrapped in a jumper, inside a large paper shopping bag." - Adam Hartley

The bird was taken to Oxfordshire Wildlife Rescue in Didcot, one of the few places which would take it due to bird flu concerns. Unfortunately it died in care there after a few days.

This story recalls another sad incident involving a Kittiwake lost inland in the Oxford midwinter - found dead on the flood at Exeter College Sports Ground, Marston by Will Langdon in February 2021. In some sort of strange parallel, Will also picked up the Kittiwake, and it lived in various freezers for a couple of years before finding its way to me. Given that the specimen was in such good condition (it probably died overnight just before Will found it early morning), I decided to get it taxidermied. I delivered it to William Hales, a specialist bird taxidermist in the Lincolnshire Wolds, and a year later it was ready for collection. I am very pleased with the result - a piece of Oxford birding history.

In the field photos courtesy of Will Langdon

The "Marston Kittiwake"

I headed down for the roost again on 18th February, this time from Burgess gate as it was pretty cloudy. Most of the small gulls were sat in a huge raft quite close by, and I quickly set about scanning them, joined by Adam. Despite the numbers, we couldn't pick out any Mediterranean Gulls, which was disappointing. In amongst the cacophony of Black-headed Gull calls I picked out a sharper, tern-like "kik-kik-kik" - my mind immediately went to Little Gull, but I couldn't see one anywhere. I alerted Adam and thirty seconds of frantic scanning later, the first-winter finally appeared opposite us, being harassed by a small group of Black-headed Gulls. Although it didn't show quite as well as the fabulous adult in December 2024, it was reasonably close and I managed to get a few photos in the gloom - I quite like the photos of it in front of the crane and pylons, showing the urban birding context. It clearly likes the meadow so hopefully it will roost again.

Two Little Gulls and a Kittiwake in the space of two weeks! In the middle of winter! Farmoor needs to up its game, especially as proper passage is about to start getting underway. If lake mode continues there could be some really interesting records in the coming weeks.