Wandsworth Caspo

On Saturday I took the boys out for a trip along the river to Wandle Creek and Wandsworth Park (where there's a playground they like). I also hoped there was a chance, even if only a small one, of reconnecting with the Caspian Gull I saw last week at the London Wetland Centre (LWC) on this stretch of the Thames since it's only a mile or so downstream. Scanning some way up river I was still stunned to see what looked like a first winter Caspian Gull sitting with other gulls some way upriver. On trips out with the boys I only take bins and a camera so no scope so, especially in the light of what had happened at the LWC, I tried to chivvy the boys along a bit to get there before it flew off. Luckily it was still there when I finally got opposite it and could see it was a Caspian, but a different bird from the one I’d seen last week at the Wetland Centre.

It was a big bird, looking bigger than nearly all of the Herring Gulls and standing taller than all of them. The photos below show the 'Caspian basics' of four colour pattern (white head and underparts, grey mantle, mid-brown wing coverts and dark brown primaries). It also shows the grey neck shawl, solid brown centred greater coverts with white fringes, solid brown tertials with pale tips and very thin fringes. The bare parts show a bicoloured bill with the end third dark and the basal two thirds paler, but with dark cutting edges. The legs are long and pale pink.

Below shows the small headed and big chested appearance.It also shows the mantle pattern with a mix of feathers with thin shaft streaks and thick white tips and the blockier 'diamond pattern' scap feathers.

Showing the blackish tail band, white upper tail and rump. You can also (just) see the secondary pattern of dark centres with pale fringes.

Shows tertial pattern with worn pale tips. The tips of the inner ones especially are very worn (the pale parts of feathers always seem to wear more quickly than darker ones - some effect of melanin protecting the feather?).

On the way back a call from a bush revealed this Chiffchaff. This is the first I've had around here this year, but presumably an over-wintering bird rather than an early migrant.

I don't think this is the first Caspian for the patch - I'm fairly sure one was reported here a few years back - but it is the first one I've found or seen here. This is one bird I've been very keen to get on this patch so I'm pretty excited! With the Barnes bird, plus those at Beddington and Rainham (and probably elsewhere) there is a good number of Caspos in London at the moment.

A good day and a problem

The day started at Staines with four Black necked Grebe fairly close in, a couple of redhead Smew on the North Basin and an adult male and redhead on the South Basin, 30+ Goldeneye including two groups of displaying males, a juv Shag on the tern rafts and later swimming around on the South Basin. There were also two Scaup – one an adult female and the other that was either a dull adult female or a first winter. While grilling the ducks and chatting to another birder he picked up a Short eared Owl over the far side of the North Basin being mobbed by corvids and which quickly ditched into a tree. It was pushed out of the tree after a few minutes and tracked the east side of the reservoirs before turning west over the south bank and heading in the direction of Staines Moor.

Then the problems started. On the way back from Staines I dropped into the Wetland Centre and everything was pretty uneventful until I got to the Peacock Hide. I scanned around a bit and, fairly close on the nearest bank of the Wader Scrape, was a first winter Caspian Gull. It was an immediate stand out bird with a white head, long wings, all dark greater coverts with white tips to the lesser, median and greater coverts forming three pale lines on the wing, and dark pale tipped tertials. After taking it all in I reached for my camera – and that moment a huge troupe of bird tour people clunked, shouted and tramped into the hide and the Caspo flew off across the Main Lake with the other large gulls. And, while some of the other gulls returned, the Caspo didn’t.

Now why is this a problem? Well the problem is that the LWC has a history of reporting Caspians, some of which are, err, well, not always Caspians. I've been birding at the LWC for nearly seven years and in that time I've been shown about a dozen and a half ‘Caspians’ which turned out to be mostly Herring Gulls or LBBs (with a couple of GBBs thrown in). Of the ones that get reported there never seem to be any photos. So, fairly or unfairly, records of Caspians from Barnes tend to be looked on with a certain amount of suspicion, despite the fact that at least some of them are probably gen.

Which brings me back to the problem. I've just had a Caspo at Barnes with no photo. Which feels like I'm just adding to the problem. Do notes still count?

UPDATE: Thankfully someone else also saw this bird - Stephen Menzie - including some great pictures here.