Winter gull-fest

This winter is still carrying on being really flat as far as birding is concerned. The weather is not bringing anything new in, so another Friday off was dedicated to catching up with some Winter specials I've not got to yet. I've not been to Kent yet this year, so another early start got me to Dungeness just after dawn.
In some ways it is a very bleak place - a nuclear power station and a long shingle beach. It is also really atmospheric and is a great migrant trap for birds. At this time of year it is really good for gulls which hang around the fishing boats. The boats are there because of the fish, which are encouraged to hang around because of the hot water pouring out of the nuclear power station at "the patch". This attracts thousands of gulls at the right time. Today though there were a few hundred gulls hanging about at the overflow.

This was my first stop because a glaucous gull has been hanging around here. They are classic winter gulls. Breeding in the arctic they move down south in the winter and a small number make their way to the south coast. They are big brutes of a bird - as large as a greater black-backed gull but with a washed out plumage. When I walked down to the hide overlooking the outflow there were a lot of birds around, on the sea, on the beach and in the nuclear power station as well. What could have been a long job though was made quite easy as the glaucous was mooching around on the beach below me.

Even in this long range shot you can see it stands out - large and almost lacking any distinct plumage compared to the gulls around it.

As I got a bit closer you can see what makes it different. It is a member of what are called "white-winged" gulls. Look at the other gulls and the end of their wings (primaries) have dark feathers. The glaucous doesn't, it is pale all the way through, as is the rest of its plumage. For a large gull it also has a delicate look to it, unlike the greater black-backs who look a bit aggressive....

After that I moved onto an even trickier target in the gull world - a caspian gull. These are closely related to herring gulls and are a bit of a specialist subject. In many plumages they are VERY difficult to separate. Dungeness though has a 1st winter bird hanging around and they are a bit easier to pull out. You are still poking for subtle differences amongst many other birds. Fortunately when I was at the glaucous one of the locals turned up and gave me some pointers for where I could find it. So, I headed for the beach and the fishing boats pulled up on it. A few turnstones were around to keep me interested initially.

Problem though was that one of the boats was just off the beach cleaning their catch and all the gulls were around them not on the beach where you could study them.

 The boat did come into the beach to land its catch and the gulls dispersed inland to clean and have a rest. As the flock came together you could study them and try and find the caspian. You are looking for a juvenile large gull, so brownish overall and there were quite a few of them.

Flying around is too much for me to identify them though so I waited till they came to ground. Finally I found what I wanted.

This is the madness of laridology. In the photo above the caspian stands out if you know what you are looking for. Only one of them is a juvenile gull that has a stand-out totally white head.

Unlike the glaucous gull this has dark primaries but look at that head. No colour on it at all.

Occasionally it stood up and you can see another key feature - it has REALLY long legs. Also you need to look at that almost shawl-like plumage on its neck.

It has very long wings as well, and better people than me could comment on other plumage features here but I've had it confirmed that this is the real-deal.

One thing for certain it that is has a very large gape!!!
After that I moved to move to the RSPB reserve and got two more nice birds. The first was a slavonian grebe on the pit by the main road. Unfortunately you can't stop there so I couldn't get any photos!! The tree sparrows on the feeders at Boulderwall farm though were a bit easier to photograph.

Finally I went down to Scotney gravel pits, about a couple of miles away. There is a large flock of feral barnacle geese there

but what I was after was a pair of bean geese.  They were really tricky though, as they were in the greylag goose flock, and all of them were asleep. I waited about 45 minutes and got a couple of decent views of them - dark beak , orange-legs but not enough for a photo.
Finally gave up on a better view and headed home. Six new year ticks in closing peregrine in the power station. I'd still like to get a sniff of a lifer soon though but I'm not complaining, well, not too much!!!