Gull ID-Larus michahellis

After failing to find any divers in Dover Harbour this morning I had a look at the roosting gulls. One white-headed, yellow-legged bird caught my eye. I thought it was a Yellow-legged as the legs are yellower than any Caspian I've seen previously, but the head looks very white for a winter michahellis. I was about 100 mtrs away and it was rather windy so apologies for picture quality.


The mantle colour was a shade or two darker than the Herring Gulls, as one would expect with michahellis.
Something disturbed the gulls and they all flew. Judging by the leg colour the bird in question is the right hand bird in near centre. Opinions appreciated.

A note from Andy Lawson, Kent's well known gull enthusiast, put the following points in favour of L. michahellis, on a quick look at the photos.

Yellow-legs (but I photographed a YL Herring at the weekend)
Square back of the head.
Long wings.
Darker grey upperparts (than nearby Herring Gulls).
white head (it's effectively in summer plumage).
small, white tips to primaries.

A loony day.

It was later than I had intended when I got to Dover Harbour this morning, in search of the Great Northern Diver that had been seen there earlier.

A couple of Steves (they come in gangs with long lens round here) and Phil Smith were already there. They kindly pointed out the distant dot that was the Diver and then showed me the frame filling shots that it had provided earlier. Don't worry they said, it will come back to the corner near the pier, where it had been fishing, and catching crabs earlier. I gritted my teeth and gave an appreciative comment about Steve's great pictures. About this time another Steve arrived, and I knew we should be OK, Mr Ashton always get his picture.

While we were waiting for the GND which was slowly working it way round the harbour and getting close we suddenly noticed a much closer diver, not a Great Northern, but a Red-throated.

This promptly dived and started didn't reappear until much further away. At the same time the Great Northern was no longer getting closer and had retreated to the central area.

Then all of a sudden it was flapping across the water and was soon airborne and apparently heading out of the harbour.

Very soon it was followed by the Red-throated which was also heading towards the harbour entrance. The airborne antics weren't finished yet though. As one disappeared the other returned and quickly the Great Northern was heading towards us. In the USA they are called Common Loons, and they are the only birds with a large role in a multi-Oscar winning film, On Golden Pond.

The diver is an adult with the remnants of black and white chequered pattern on it's back and round it's neck still showing.

As predicted it soon got down to the job of fishing and after a couple of dives came up with a respectably sized flat fish.

As it swam, almost just below us, it's large legs and feet could be seen under the water. When flying, even a long way off shore, the large protruding feet always help to differentiate it from the smaller divers.

It took some time for it to manoeuvre the fish into the right position for swallowing, but it did finally disappear.

I hadn't really thought about it before, but Steve Ray remarked that the head was very wide. Looking from the front it doest have quite a wide "face" and I wonder it the eyes are placed so that it does have some binocular vision.

A close up of the head shows the characteristic forehead "bump" and the dark culmen of the whitish bill.

After the fish starter it got suck into a crab for the next course. They take quite a wide range of food items. Fish normally make up about 55%, and crustaceans and molluscs just under 20% each.

I'm not sure if it swallowed the crab or lost it in the water. I does seem to have a rather surprised look here!

One of the Great Crested Grebes that were in a flock in the middle of the harbour moved away from the rest and made a bee-line for the Diver. For some reason when the diver reappeared next to it after one of it's frequent dives the grebe seemed really spooked and shot of at a high rate of knots.

It didn't fully take off but ran across the water for about 50 metres before settling down. The whole thing seemed rather bizarre, I have no idea why it approached the Diver in the first place.

After vigorous period of feeding the diver settled down and slowly drifted along the pier, which was quite useful as the pier height drops by about 10 feet for the second part.

Although seemingly very restful it still travelled to end of the pier and then went from the Outer Harbour to the Inner Harbour and Western Docks, where the Red-throated Diver had re-appeared earlier.

We walked round to the Life Boat Station and from here were could see the Great Northern Diver slowly swimming towards us, but no sign of the Red-throated Diver. The Guillemot that's been around for a couple of days was happily feeding in the marina, quite oblivious to the people on their boats.

It looked very healthy and had a good preen and stretch while we were watching it. I was told that earlier in the morning a Common Seal had been around the marina, but there was no sign when we were there.

Eyes bigger than belly?

Inspired by Steve Aston's Bittern pictures, and a bit fed up with finding so few birds locally, I allowed myself an excursion to Grove Ferry.

Arriving at the Feast Hide I learnt from Martyn Wilson and Mark Chidwick that they'd seen a Bittern in flight and also a Kingfisher had zipped through a couple of times, without stopping. When they left I was happy to watch the goings on on the pool, and was intrigued by what seemed a close association between a group of three Gadwall and three Dabchicks. I don't know if the Dabchicks were feeding on invertebrates stirred up by the dabbling Gadwalls or whether they just liked each others company, but, rather like Stonechats and Dartford Warblers, there definitely appeared to be relationship between the two species.

I don't seem to be able to get away from Cormorants at the moment, but there was no way to ignore this bird struggling with a large, potential meal.

I watched it for some time, and on several occasions it looked as if it was in a position to swallow the fish (an Eel possibly), but each time it ended up with it back in the water and still in tact.

I didn't actually see it give up, but I did see it swim to the raft and climb onto the right hand side, making a symmetrical pair with the bird already there. As there was no bulge in the neck and I hadn't seen it manage to get it down, I assume it had had to give up. (Just noticed Steve had an almost identical encounter, I wonder if it was the same Cormorant and the same eel.)

When the Bittern did appear it dropped out of sight in the reeds just behind and right of the water. A few minutes later it flew up and away and I failed miserably to get much more than a smudge across the screen.

As the afternoon wore on, in fact it was really quite early but a large dark cloud obscured the sun and made it seem later, there were large numbers of Fieldfare moving at the back of the marsh.

Looking into the sun, as it peeped out through a gap, some of the trees looked laden with these thrushes. At St Margaret's we watch them coming in off the sea on their migration, but they seldom hang around the area as winter draws on (a Carry On joke?). Only very occasionally have I seen one join the Blackbirds on the berry feast in the garden, but at Grove Ferry/Stodmarsh and on Worth Marshes it is possible to see hundreds gathering in pre-roost groups. Must be something to do with the farming methods?

Tails of the expected

Having had our Indian Summer we now seem to have the monsoon season. In between the "showers" that were forecast I zipped down to Dover to check out the harbour for any wind blown strays, as I had intended to do, two days ago.

I wasn't lucky, no divers or auks so I contented myself with watching the regulars while the clouds gathered for the next deluge. I rather like collecting photos of bit and pieces of birds, legs, beaks, or in this case a tail. They come in useful sometimes. This one's quite easy.

Here's a view of the same bird from head on.

I quite liked the patterns it made as it landed. I almost looked as if it was doing a bit of ballet dancing.

I think that it is using thay large and strong tail as a brake, before the feet drop into the water.

Although Cormorants can't be described as elegant I think it's doing it's best! You can see the alula on the right wing acting rather like the flap on the wing of a landing aircraft.

Here's another diving bird, the main thing you see is how far back the legs are set.

There were about ten Great Crested Grebes in the harbour, there is a small flock each year, but I'm yet to find any of the less common grebes with them. The sheltered waters would seem to be ideal after stormy weather so it's certainly worth checking.

One or two Kittiwakes are often to be found here in winter. The winter adults develop a dark collar and hindneck and tend to look quite "grubby".

The jet black wing-tips, without extensive "mirrors" and the bright yeollow bill are distinctive.

I don't know if Black-headed Gulls ever form pairs in the winter, but these two seemed to be going through some sort of courting ritual, parading up and down and throwing there heads back and calling in a way I've only seen before around breeding colonies in the spring.
I made my escape as the rain returned, but this evening I heard that a drought is forecast for next year.