Ebro Delta ~ Spain - 23/27.04.14

Back to the Ebro Delta for Slender-billed & Audouin's  ...

Early evening flight out of Stansted to Reus on the 23rd, picked up the car a Fiat 500L and headed for Sant Carles de la Rapita a fishing port on the southern side of the Delta. Arrived at the Hotel Rocamar about 22:30, dinner & bed ...

24.04.14

Up and out at 06:30 for first light at Punta de la Banya, a narrow sand bar with saltpans at the end and colonies of nesting Slender's, Audouin's & Yellow-legs all in the restricted area 100's of birds busy sitting eggs ..

The light was flat due to cloud cover so we headed for Deltabre, the rice fields on route were devoid of birds apart from Mallard and stayed that way ..

Behind Lidl's we found some terns feeding ...

Gull-billed Tern

Whiskered Tern

The light had now improved so returned to Punta de la Banya about mid morning for a great session with the Slender-bills. About a dozen birds to work with as most were nesting ..

Slender-billed Gull

News of two Broad-billed that we couldn't locate but we did find this ..

Collared Pratincole

25.04.14

Again it was overcast and windy 33mph !! to start with on the sand-bar, with no chance of images we checked out the flamingo's and located the Lesser in the flock at La Tancada then headed for El Golero to try for AGP but couldn't find it ...

We headed for the mountains hoping for some sheltered area's ..

Trying a few places near Tortosa, Cara being the highest but came away with no images ... 

Late afternoon the wind dropped off so we stayed in the harbour at Sant Carles with constant boats coming in and plenty of Audouin's & Yellow-legs to photograph ..

Audouin's Gull

Yellow-legged Gull

26.04.14

Again out to Punta de la Banya and tried our luck with the Slender-bills.

The wind had dropped right off with carm near flat sea and a few birds to work with ...

Slender-billed Gull

Mid morning and we headed for the steppe region near Lleida, touring around El Cogul, Aspa, Alfies, Artesa and Sudanell ending up at the massive reed beds of Embalse de Utxesa.

The most numerous bird was Calandra Lark and we couldn't even get close ..

We did see Witherby's Reed Bunting and plenty of Great Reed Warbler ..

Night Heron

Heading back on the C-12 near Benifallet this saved the day ...

Short-toed Eagle

27.04.14

High winds again early morning on the sand bar, totally the wrong direction all the birds either standing or flying away from the sun ...

But what it did do was make the normally flighty YLG's more approachable and held some other goodies on the ground staying out of the strong winds ...

Yellow-legged Gull

Audouin's Gull

Lesser Black-backed Gull

Kentish Plover

Once the light got to harsh we headed for the rice fields to try for Gull-billed again and found a few birds that were reasonably faithful to a limited area ..

Gull-billed Tern

We were just killing time, driving around trying different area's, a dead end track out on Fangar Bay lead us to small inlet and a nice surprise awaited with confiding Slender-bill and a small flock of Sanderling ...

Slender-billed Gull

Sanderling

We continued on around the bay to Port d'illa de Mar a tiny little harbour which had some feeding terns ...

Little Tern

And with only about 90 mins before we had to head for the airport, we found 4 Slender-bills feeding with a Greenshank and as if that wasn't good enough 2 Stilts flew in and 6 Little Terns !!!

Slender-billed Gull

Greenshank

Black winged Stilt

Little Tern

90 minutes of mayhem to finish off the trip with ...

This is just a taster with the usual focus on individual species to follow 

Great Black-Backed Gull ~ 2nd cy ~ Leucistic ~ Dungeness, Kent - 06.04.14

A pale Great Black-backed gull in its 2nd Cycle is another regular at Dungeness, Kent ...

This unusual looking bird is probably leucistic, where the colour pigment has reduced, the darker pigmentation is replaced creating this faded look ..
Or could this paleness of come about by hybridisation from pass generations a Glauc x Gbbg, then one of the offspring bred and this bird is the result .. Hmmm could be, but I favour the leucism ...

Great Black-Backed Gull ~ 2nd. cy 

This is how it should look ...

Caspian Gull ~ Dark Tail ~ 2cy ~ Dungeness, Kent - 05.04.14

Scanning through the gathering flock on the beach at Dungeness, I was drawn to the large bill of this bird.

Once clear of the other gulls, my first thoughts were of caspian ...

I grabbed a record shot, it was now the waiting game for it to come closer ..

The flock are still flighty and the slightest thing seems to flush them, then its relocating the bird again ...

It came in only further away at the back of the flock, and was soon flushed again by walkers, this time tracking it and securing some flight images ..

Once settled back on the beach it was a quick check of the back of the camera, then came the tail pattern !!!!!

A text to MC & AL but thrown off track by the tail and then trying to send a back of camera shot which just wouldn't send ...

I'm trying to piece the puzzle together but the bits don't fit !!

What with the near high tide and a couple who sat to close they flushed the flock and the bird didn't return, we tried again on sunday and couldn't draw it in with the rest of the flock !!

Once home and the features start to come together they suggest the possibility of ...

Larus heuglini

The experts soon helped out and dark tailed caspians are regular from core populations 

Caspian Gull ~ 2cy 

Most striking is the tail band solid dark all the way up to the uppertail coverts, with fine barring to outer feathers ... 
On the upper rump, heavy blotchy markings, fading down in to the uppertail coverts ...
Greater coverts are solid brown, with a pale marking towards the terminal end and white tipped ...
Secondaries are dark brown, tipped white and give the dark trailing edge to wing ...
White head with fine streaking to hindneck ...
Long bill, black with base becoming pink ...
White eyelids are quite prominent ...
Scapulars are white tipped with dark shaft streaks, diamonds & anchor markings ...
Pale grey mantle ...
Inner primaries with pale inner web ...
Tertials replaced show darker shade of grey to mantle ... 

  

Underwing coverts finely barred brown with axillaries dark barred ...

A great looking bird ..

And a very interesting bird to learn from ...

Now I need a trip to somewhere around the Black Sea coast for plenty of Caspians ...

Glaucous Gull ~ 1st. W ~ Dungeness, Kent - 29.03.14

Another session in good light at times with the beast of Dungeness, the confiding Glaucous Gull ...

The birds markings are superb ..

Glaucous Gull ~ 1st. W

Hope it stays through the summer ..

Caspian Gull ~ 1st. W ~ Dungeness, Kent - 29.03.14

This bird wasn't given the chance to move closer to us, no sooner had it landed when it was flushed by two joggers and didn't return ...

A new big bird as it doesn't match any of the other caspians that i've photographed at Dungeness ...

Caspian Gull ~ 1st. W

 

A probable male bird ?

Great looking bird