 |
| No words can describe watching this! |
Sunday 7th March. After a few days on patch with little to show for it, I must admit that something did feel a little different as I made my way across the Aristotle Lane bridge. It was cloudy, grey, and damp in the air; but without the biting northerly and clear conditions that had made birding rather unpleasant earlier in the week, and which had apparently halted any start to overhead migration. In fact, just as I was locking my bike up, I was greeted by the familiar sight of a hirundine hawking over the floods - my first Sand Martin of the year. A quick check of the floods revealed two each of Black-tailed Godwit and Dunlin, together with a few Shelduck. Birds were clearly moving.
 |
| BOC shot of the Sand Martin - the photo is so rubbish I haven't even bothered to get it off the camera |
After my standard morning walk on the Meadow I planned to spend the afternoon staking out Farmoor, given that there were plenty of reports of inland Common Scoters and Kittiwakes on Birdguides. I met Steve Lavington in the hide, who had already found an apparently new adult male Common Scoter - nice! The long-staying Greater Scaup was near the hide, a Dunlin was on the causeway, and there was a small flock of Common Gulls milling around. Despite this, there were no birds moving overhead, and no hirundines present, so my enthusiasm for doing the roost was beginning to wane. Since I had the scope in the car with me I decided to head back to Port Meadow to properly check the shoreline in hope of an early Little Ringed Plover. 90% of my visits now are just with bins and camera on my walk before work - the scope is simply too big and heavy to lug around all day. Unless I make a special effort to do the roost, I've just accepted that I will probably miss some birds with this strategy. From a patch birding perspective, however, the increased focus on vismig after years of just doing the roost has recently been paying dividends, so I think it's a worthy trade-off for the time being.
 |
| The afternoon murk on the meadow |
I arrived on Port Meadow for my second visit of the day and initially it seemed that little had changed. A/the Sand Martin was still present, together with the two Black-tailed Godwits. There had clearly been an influx of Pintail - approx 60, up from 14 this morning, so I spent some time scanning the wildfowl. I soon picked up the long-staying 1w Little Gull feeding quite close to the Burgess Field gate. I've now seen this bird several times but I'm aware that a few other regulars have been struggling to connect with it, so I put the news out and was soon joined by Matthew Lloyd, Steve Goddard and Steve Sansom. The gull then started performing incredibly well, rather like the adult I had in December 2024 - flycatching just metres from the shoreline, right in front of us. I began filling my SD card with photos, as usual.
 |
| Just one of the circa 1000 frames I took - what is it about Little Gulls on Port Meadow... |
We had been watching the gull for perhaps half an hour when I had my brain meltdown moment. I'm not even sure if I was using bins or not, but I just remember seeing this pale bird with a chunky pink, black-tipped bill materialise in flight literally right in front of me, just behind the Little Gull. It then banked, revealing its tail and wing pattern and almost reflexively I lifted the camera and began firing off shots.
 |
| I am amazed at how well these photos have turned out despite the gloomy light and my panicked state! |
I knew instantly that this was a 1w Ring-billed Gull, a bird that I had never seen before, but was really struggling to believe the evidence from my eyes. I ran the few metres up the bank towards my scope and spluttered/shouted something like "look at this bird, look at the Common Gull, it's a Ring-billed Gull!!", as it landed amongst some Wigeon.
Thankfully everyone got onto it immediately, and upon looking down my scope I could see all the features that I was expecting - that head/bill structure which is so different from a Common Gull, the pale-grey mantle with slight scalloping and dark marks on the feathers, the greater-covert bar - even the size of it, it was all perfect. I then looked at the flight shots on the back of my camera and began double checking them against the Collins app, just in case I had somehow messed up a runt Herring Gull or something. Then, the bird flew north over the grass and disappeared from view.
I was dithering a bit at this point, unsure how to put the news out, and suddenly lacking confidence. I've made a couple of identification errors over the past year and was understandably nervous about reporting a county mega, without necessarily double checking it with anyone more experienced. I think it was lucky that there were other birders present, especially people I already know and have been birding with frequently - there was less of a feeling of messing up in front of potentially judgemental strangers. I first messaged the local Port Meadow WhatsApp group, saying that I thought I had a 1w Ring-billed Gull on the flood, and sent some photos, and then forwarded these to the main Oxon birding group.
Initially there was almost no response apart from the customary, slightly panicked message from Ben Sheldon asking which side of the Meadow was best to view from. Crucially there were no comments from anyone on the identification of the bird! Bizarre radio silence, and I thought that maybe I should have put it out in a more definitive sense, rather than implying that this was a possible. Thankfully the bird then reappeared, flying back onto the far side of the flood - good, especially as Ben was on his way. It was more distant, but showed well with a Common Gull, providing an excellent comparison.
 |
| Video still from when it was more distant on the water |
Still no response from the group chats, and where was Ben? The minutes dragged by. Finally he appeared in the distance on his bike, and we lined it up in the scope for him, ready to connect. I almost felt like I was waiting for him to confirm that we weren't going mad, that this was indeed a Ring-billed Gull, and when he did I was finally able to breathe a sigh of relief. Hands were shaken, a small cheer was let out and there were smiles all round. Simon Myers and Mario Garcia arrived just in time to connect that evening, but it was getting pretty gloomy by this point. I had a last-gasp find of a 2w Caspian Gull before deciding to call it for the night.
 |
| The successful twitchers on the first evening |
The following morning I arrived on the meadow at 6:40am to set up for a bird ringing session on Burgess Field. Obviously I had to check for the Ring-billed Gull so went ahead of the group to the viewpoint next to the gate. Jed Cleeter was the only birder who had made the effort to get there pre-dawn and hadn't yet seen the gull, but I soon spotted it walking around on the grass at the southern end with a group of Black-headed Gulls. We hurried round to get closer views just as two undergraduate twitchers arrived and were able to point it out to them as it flew around before settling on the water. The rest of the ringing group also enjoyed the bird before we started our (rather unproductive) mist-netting session.
I then had to leave and what apparently followed throughout the day was a mixture of confusion over the identification combined with the bird being rather sporadic in its appearances, which unfortunately has led to a lot of people dipping. It was last seen at about 1pm before flying south with Common Gulls. There were around 25 people at the roost that evening, certainly the largest group of birders I have ever seen on Port Meadow (more even than the Pectoral Sandpiper or the "Siberian Buff Bellied Mipit"), but despite our best efforts the bird was not seen to come into roost. I had two Caspian Gulls (an adult and a 1w) and a pair of Mediterranean Gulls, which were nice to see and evidence of more small gull passage. I feel there is still a glimmer of hope for those who have yet to connect, given how it was hanging around during the day today and commuting between the meadow and (presumably) other nearby flood fields.
 |
| Massive county dip by Burgess gate |
Ring-billed Gull was not even really on my radar for potential finds on Port Meadow. In this blog post (here) I mentioned Bonaparte's Gull as a possibility, but Ring-billed Gull has become so much rarer these days (and especially so away from the coast) that I thought it was a total pipe dream for an inland patch. These Birdguides articles give a good overview of how the pattern of occurrences has changed in the 50 years since they were first recorded in Britain.
https://www.birdguides.com/articles/britain-ireland/the-rise-and-fall-of-ring-billed-gull/
https://www.birdguides.com/news/europes-only-regular-ring-billed-gull-flock-shows-signs-of-recovery/
I have entertained the idea that one could turn up during the February/March movement of Common Gulls, and have indeed always kept an eye out (mostly looking for Russian Common Gulls, really) - but I am still finding it unbelievable that it actually came to be. There does seem to have been a mini-influx of new Ring-billed Gulls and Bonaparte's Gulls in Britain this winter, with several reported in the southwest England, so maybe this year was the year for it to happen. In my view, short of some genuine mega rarity it will be hard to top this in the context of the Port Meadow patch - especially as it's a rare gull, which is something that everyone has been waiting for me to find! The only other UK lifer I have found on patch was the male Grey-headed Wagtail in 2019.
I thought it would be useful here to summarise the identification features of 1w Ring-billed Gull, especially if it ends up hanging around the county and visiting other peoples' patches:
- Thick, pink-based bill with black tip - compared with insipid greyish-yellow and a weak band in most Common Gulls.
- Squarer head, more like a Herring Gull - less "cute" expression.
- Size variable but usually slightly larger than Common Gull - this individual is quite a bit larger, which combined with the strong bill possibly indicates a male.
- Much paler grey mantle than Common Gull, similar to argenteus Herring Gull, often with scalloped edges and dark central markings.
- Tertials lack the broad white fringes of Common Gull.
- Greater coverts are the same colour as the mantle and patterned differently to Common Gull - usually an obvious contrast in the latter.
- In flight, these features produce a striking impression, almost like a large Mediterranean Gull, with the dark primaries contrasting with the pale inner-primary panel, greater covert bar and mantle. In Common Gulls, the wing appears darker and browner than the mantle.
- The tail pattern (at least in this individual) is diagnostic, almost appearing like a "broken bar", consisting of a thick terminal band combined with variegated markings going up the shaft towards the rump. Common Gulls usually have a much cleaner-looking tail and thinner black band. The tail pattern of this Ring-billed Gull would be most likely confused with a 2w Herring Gull, but in this species the pattern is more extensively dark and continuous going from the distal to the proximal tip of the feather, with less of a fault-bar effect.
- In 2w Herring Gull (which can be a real confusion at distance due to the similarity in mantle colour and bill pattern) the coverts and tertials are more variegated, with white speckles and barring against a brown base colour, as opposed to the neat markings of Ring-billed Gull. The underwing is also more dusky in flight - Ring-billed Gull is more similar to Common Gull.
I do have a bit of history with Ring-billed Gull in Oxfordshire with a "half" tick at Appleford on 24th November 2020. I found a very strange-looking gull loafing on the gravel pit which was totally unlike any of the expected species, and almost recalling Black-tailed Gull - smaller than a Lesser Black-backed Gull, mantle colour similar or slightly darker than Common Gull and with a Ring-billed Gull head and bill pattern. I eventually realised was one of the apparent Ring-billed x Lesser Black-backed Gull hybrids that have been a feature of Midlands reservoir roosts for the last decade. There are at least two birds involved, one of which has been photographed regularly at Belvide - and indeed, this particular bird returned to Belvide for the first time in the winter of 2020 just a day or two after I recorded it at Appleford. Lew got some photos of the wing pattern as well which showed it to be more similar to Ring-billed Gull than Common Gull, with reduced/no mirror on P9.
 |
| The hybrid gull is in the foreground of the photo, standing by itself |
There was even some discussion as to whether this could be an unusually large and dark Ring-billed Gull, but I think the wide tertial crescent doesn't fit well with this theory. It's unclear whether these hybrids originate from Greenland (where the breeding ranges of Ring-billed Gull and graellsii Lesser Black-backed Gull overlap), or from somewhere in Europe. After all, the returning adult Ring-billed Gulls that winter in western Europe must be going somewhere during the summer (not necessarily back to America!), and at least one has been known to set up shop in a Common Gull colony and breed there. So a nice find of what is in a world birding context a rare and interesting rare hybrid pairing, but missing out on a county tick!
No comments:
Post a Comment