Northern Gull

Had an interesting gull at the farmlands in the week coinciding with the blast of northerly air. It stood out as a lot of the upperparts were still juvenile, there was a uniform wash over the underparts and mantle and there were clear white tips to the primaries. On the spread wing the primary window extended to the outer primaries, there was a prominent secondary bar and the underwing was overall very pale with dark confined to the tips of the outer primaries. The undertail coverts were barred and the uppertail coverts were heavily barred. 

 A smoky wash over the underparts and mantle contrasting with a paler head

 The pale inner webs extending to the outer primaries and heavily barred uppertail coverts are shown here 

 The pale underwing with dark confined to tips to of the primaries is visible on this shot. The underwing coverts are also smoky. 

 Another shot of the heavily barred uppertail coverts and smoky wash to the mantle

The pale primary tips are just visible in this shot

These smoky northern gulls with extensive pale in the primaries pop up from time to time at Beddington (and widely elsewhere) and there are various possibilities of what they can be:

 1) Pale argentatus Herring Gull- generally paler birds are considered to be high latitude birds of the northern nominate form of Herring Gull,

 2) Hybrid Glaucous x Herring Gull (Viking Gull)

 3) Variable birds from the Faroes and Iceland (where there is historical introgression of argenteus (argentues being  the race present on the North Atlantic islands)  with perhaps American Herring Gull (in Iceland most probably) plus wide spread hybridisation with Glaucous Gull

4) Hybrid Glaucous x American Herring Gull - Nelson's Gull (the short bill and sparsely barred undertail coverts on this bird don't point towards that) 

5) They also superficially resemble Thayer's Gull but on this bird among other features the overall tones and structure are not right and the pale inner webs do not extend to the outermost primaries 

 I asked round for a few opinions and a northern Herring Gull is the favourite (Faroes and Iceland suggested which would mean a northern argenteus) with Viking Gull the next favourite. Here's a bit more on these birds HERE. 

Fudge Factor

 David Campbell picked out this interesting Aythya yesterday. Superficially looks like a female/immature Ferruginous Duck. The reddish-brown colouration, contrasting white undertail coverts, the high peaked crown and black-tipped bill with a bluish sub-terminal band are suggestive of Ferruginous Duck. However hybrid female/immature Ferruginous Ducks are notorious look-alike traps and there seems to be several features that indicate it is a hybrid. In this image a subtle grey scalloping is visible on the mantle features, there appears to be a darker breast that contrasts with the flanks and the white undertail coverts don't appear to have a dark border. In a pure bird we would expect to see a more uniform colouration between the breast and flanks and a lack of scalloping on the upperparts with a black bordered white undertail covert patch.

 Similar features are shown on the other side of the bird. Also to my eye the overall colouration is more brown-red rather than red-brown. 

 Even though the bill has a superficially Fudge Duck pattern on close inspection the bluish sub-terminal band is obliquely angled and the black tip is extensive. A black tip confined to the nail of the bird is a feature of male Ferruginous Duck but in females this feature can be more variable with an extensive dark tip. However the dark tip is very extensive on this individual and the blue band should be less obliquely angled pointing towards a hybrid. 

 Compared to a female Pochard the crown is visibly higher peaked with a more steeper forehead and less concaved profile from crown peak to bill tip. The profile is quite Ferruginous duck like.

 The underwing is overall white which is a feature shared by Tufted Duck, Pochard and Ferruginous Duck but the trailing edge on the underwing is quite diffuse- more Pochard like. 

 The spread upperwing is also quite Ferruginous Duck like with dark tips to the secondaries and primaries forming a broad band on the trailing edge of the wing. On Pochard there are no dark tips to the secondaries (but there are on Tufted Duck). The band pinches in on the inner primaries which is an unusual pattern and the broad wing bar is greyish rather than white. Again a mix of features. Overall an interesting bird presumably with either Ferruginous Duck ancestry or a remarkable lookalike from a Pochard x Tufted Duck pairing.  

 We were actually doing the gulls before we got distracted by the duck. This first-winter Caspian Gull was one of three different Caspian Gulls. 

 Second-winter Caspian Gull (bird #1). It doesn't show too well in this shot but the mantle and scaps  were finely streaked. The distinctive mirror on p10 is obvious in this photo. 

 Second-winter #2. The mantle and scapulars of this individual are much more uniform than the bird above. 

 A bad photo of a Caspian-type that didn't quite cut the mustard

and to conclude proceedings on an overall rather interesting session with Kojak and Dave at the farmlands- the first-winter Glaucous Gull (a pale morph) made a fly by.

Hybrid duck links:
Ferruginous Duck x Pochard
Pochard x Tufted Duck
Ferruginous Duck x Tufted Duck

Port Meadow

Spent the weekend at Holly's in Oxford. Thought I'd check out some local birding sites so visited Port Meadow BLOG HERE. An impressive site with a large area  of flooded grassland. By the sounds of it the field dries out in the summer so its mainly a winter and spring birding area. Good numbers of wildfowl there including Teal, Wigeon and Pintail with Peregrine and Red Kites patrolling. Goosander roost there and there's also a flock of feral geese- which were nowhere to be seen today. 

Certainly worth keeping an eye on the area especially when waders are on the move. 

 Red Kite and Lapwings 

 Wigeon and Teal avoiding a Peregrine 

 A decent bit of wetland- looking forward to check out the area in spring during wader passage 

 View looking north 

 View from the Thames (in foreground) 

Treecreeper in the Worminghall Churchyard (no Hawfinches unfortunately). Presumably the same bird I saw in the Old Vicarage garden a couple of weeks ago.

Back to Patch

Despite all the problems at Beddington it is actually amazing that we've still got such a great site on our doorstep in South London and even though I've just come back from the Tropics where you can see more species of bird in a day then in a life time at Beddington- it's still good coming home (as long as the next trips are planned- Western Sahara in March, Eastern Europe in Spring and Summer and the Azores in autumn).

 At the moment there is Twite, Dartford Warbler, Water Pipit, two Iceland Gulls, a Glaucous Gull, Caspian Gulls and other local winter specialities like Jack Snipe and Green Sandpiper. There's also Firecrest probably still lurking on the edges and Barn Owls and Tawny Owls are now almost daily. 

The whole incinerator issue, legal dispute, on going political struggle/campaign, the delays in restoration and the collapse in the target species over the last few years has all been part of Beddington's darkest hour but there is still a lot to fight for. The problems faced at Beddington are the whole world in microcosm- unethical corporations, corrupt and weak local government and complicit roll over local communities- everything that is wrong with the world, with capital driven economies, market failure and vulnerabilities of the human species is all here- so important to remember the Battle for Beddington is the Battle for the Planet so unsurprisingly it is a right arse ache. 

Juvenile/first-winter Iceland Gull, the dark eye and overall marbled plumage indicate a first cycle bird 

 Second-winter Iceland Gull- the pale eye and grey mantle and scapulars indicate a second cycle bird 

 First-winter Caspian Gull- the pale underwing on this individual is striking 

 Interesting comparison of two Cormorants. The bird on the right is clearly smaller with a finer bill- almost Shag like but the structure and flight mode were wrong for Shag. Possibly two different sub-species with Atlantic Cormorant on the left and Continental on the right? 

The Cormorants again- clearly major structural differences 

Lark Twitch

Had to be done. Seen so much of this bird on the internet that seeing it in real life was an anti-climax but a good morning out with Kojak and bumped into Franco too.

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THE BUTTERFLIES OF GHANA

Planning on doing some work with Isaac on the butterflies of our study area. I'm already going to be stretched with getting to grips with local bird calls and identification so that I can try and get some background levels to try and pick out anything interesting from. The plan with the butterflies is to create a photo specimen collection - which we could use for some local information material and draw up local lists.

We can use Ebird to set up new birding hotspots (if we discover any) and basically populate public resources like Ebird, xeno-canto, International Bird Collection with any data we collect. If anything is worthy of a write up there's The African Bird Club or the Lepidopterist Society of Africa and of course daily news on blogs and social media.  For entomology,  global systems have yet to evolve so we can create on line repositories for local information and then transfer it over  when they are invented. 

I'm always keen to use every day technology to do grass roots research and engagement. It's really important to display how simple it is with making a significant contribution to natural history and how to take ownership of conservation. Really important to see traditional research centres, institutions, conservation organisations and Universities for the clumsy and inefficient things they are and how connecting modern popular natural history research technology with traditional power houses is a really important way of making good progress.

Its more difficult to move from data collection to habitat acquisition and then activating that resource but the starting point is data and then connecting that to enterprise- there's even crowd sourcing options available and the block chain could present important opportunities for conservation. The ultimate aim in Ghana would be to acquire some forest and promote public engagement. To do that need to find some forest with some USP- Unique Selling Points- i.e. we need to find some specialities. By looking at Birds, Butterflies and Moths we are increasing our chances.  If we have success it will be people power conservation at its biggest impact- needless to say the Tropics is the global biodiversity hot belt. 

 I agree that social media is mainly a sewer but there are some very useful and easy to use features which are public and can be used to invite validation, comment and publicity. I think what Roger Morris and Co have done with UK Hoverflies is nothing short of heroic and such open, transparent and engaging approaches to natural history is a real challenge on Scientific Community pretentiousness and data/information protectionism. The challenge is to create these structures on a sustainable basis (UK Hoverflies is a success due to the unsustainable commitment of several key volunteers) so linking these systems with employment is important.

Basically here's the start of my specimen collection of butterflies on facebook. 

GHANA 2018, MANSO NKWANTA

A visit to Manso Nkwanta was the highlight of the trip. I was posted at Manso Nkwanta in 1997 as part of my MSc. At the time I was studying Mining Geology with the objective of progressing to Mine Management and overseeing ecologically sensitive mining and land remediation. As that objective is complete blue sky thinking (as the DNA of most mining companies in this primitive time in history are exploitative) what actually happened was that I moved into offering land remediation/ green space management contracting services to industry while forming pressure and damage limitation groups to address the un-accountability of industry. 

Anyway the rose tinted world of university was a most enjoyable time so it was great going back 20 years later to re-visit a place I haven't been since my view of the world has adjusted to a more accurate less naive perception- a regrettably maturer one. It was surreal over-riding the earlier memories and it was actually very positive to see that the area has ecologically survived overall remarkably well- relatively speaking. 

I'm planning on re-visiting in the future to explore some areas in the region as there hasn't been extensive birding exploration there. Looking forward to that. 

Here's a few pics from last week and a few from the past. 

Little Green Bee-eater 

Pygmy Kingfisher

Vieilot's Barbet 

Yellow-browed Camaroptera

Grey Longbill

Grey Kestrel and Red-necked Buzzard

Red-necked Buzzard 

View from the Manso Nkwanta ridge 

Melodious Warbler - interesting to hear Melodious Warbler singing on the winter grounds

View looking north in 1997 

View looking north today. There has been some increased small scale development along the main road but overall the forested hills remain largely wooded but with larger areas of farm bush and secondary forest 

Our Mining Exploration Camp today- the company I worked for have long gone and the camp is now accommodation for the local medical centre 

Great to see that the local Pizza Hut is still there!

In 1997, the company I was working for were looking for Gold. A method of sampling was trenching down to an enrichment zone. The trenches inadvertently acted as massive pit fall traps and I would often go along the trenches looking for what had fallen in.

There were plenty of snakes, mainly small ones but this huge Rhinoceros Viper was exceptional

Rhinoceros Viper- note the prominent nasal horns

Map of the Manso Nkwanta region showing an area of dense secondary forest towards the north west. This will be an area to focus on. 

View looking north over Manso Nkwanta

Mining (presumably illegal) has left a lot of pools north of the village. Will be interesting to see if these pool eventually become of ecological interest- presumably dependent on what chemicals are being used to process the deposits 

Another view of the denser secondary forest area worthy of a bit more exploration