Frampton on Severn and Crabtree Hill - 5th April

With a free day in the Cotswold's I decided to head out for the day to visit various local sites. First stop was Frampton on Severn sailing club lake where a 1st winter Bonaparte's Gull had been present since 31st March. I found the bird fairly quickly roosting on pontoon but unfortunately I was viewing directly into ths sun and so my views were rather poor - I later found out that I could have viewed the pontoon from the north which would have been much better. This was a lovely little spot with my first Willow Warbler of the year singing as well as large numbers of Sand Martin and Swallow present. It felt very spring like. My eBird checklist can be viewed here.

Bonaparte's Gull - 1st winter, Frampton on Severn Sailing Club Lake

Bonaparte's Gull - 1st winter, Frampton on Severn Sailing Club Lake

I then headed to Crabtree Hill in the Forest of Dean for the wintering Great Grey Shrike and after a short search was soon enjoying good views of this bird. As I watched the bird dropped to the ground and took a Common Lizard before flying to its larder. My eBird checklist can be viewed here.

Great Grey Shrike - Crabtree Hill, Forest of Dean

Great Grey Shrike - Crabtree Hill, Forest of Dean

Finally, I headed to Cleeve Hill Common to look for Ring Ouzel but other than my first Wheatear of the spring I saw little. My eBird checklist can be viewed here.

Cornwall - 16th-20th March

A long weekend in Cornwall and nothing much planned, I wanted to relax after a busy time at work, watch the final matches of the 6 Nations and drink some wine! But there were a few birds to see and I decided to bird on the morning of 17th before abandoning the bins and relaxing (unless of course something good was found).  So, on the morning of 17th I was up at 06:30 and on my way to Helston where a Bonaparte's Gull (1st winter) had been present on the boating since 5th March. I arrived at the boating lake at 07:30 and there was no sign of the bird but in the southern end of the lake was a flock of around 75 Black-headed Gull and I decided that this was the obvious place where the bird would appear. I waited for 20 minutes with no luck and then decide to walk around the lake seeing Shoveler, Tufted Duck, Chiffchaff and Grey Wagtail. By the time I returned to the southern end a brief scan revealed the Bonaparte's, obvious because of its small size even at a distance. For the next hour or so I enjoyed good views of this diminutive gull as it loafed amongst the Black-headed Gull and occasionally uttered a distinctive tern like call.

On 19th a morning on the beach with Nigel, Alice, Sarah and the boys found us playing rugby - of sorts! Off shore there were three Sandwich Tern, my first migrants of the year.

Bonaparte's Gull, note the black bill, blackish wing markings and neat trailing edge to the wing. Helston Boating Lake.

Bonaparte's Gull - Compare the wing and head pattern to the Black-headed Gull in the background. To me this species is intermediate between Black-headed Gull and Little Gull. Helston Boating Lake.

Bonaparte's Gull - Helston Boating Lake.

Bonaparte's Gull - Note the clean white underwing and bubble-gum pink legs. Helston Boating Lake.

Bonaparte's Gull. Helston Boating Lake.

Bonaparte's Gull. Helston Boating Lake.

Bonaparte's Gull - This image is roughly to scale with the Black-headed Gull below. 

Helston Boating Lake.

Black-headed Gull (1st winter) - Roughly to scale with the image of the Bonaparte's Gull above. The greater bulk and orange to red bill of the Black-headed is distinctive and obvious. While the dark tertial centres are said to be darker on Bonaparte's this is not obvious. Helston Boating Lake.

Bonaparte's Gull. Helston Boating Lake.

Bonaparte's Gull. Helston Boating Lake.

Bonaparte's Gull - Note the distinctive white underwing with neat dark trailing 

edge to the primaries and secondaries. Helston Boating Lake.

Bonaparte's Gull - Note the distinctive white underwing with neat dark trailing 

edge to the primaries and secondaries. Helston Boating Lake.

Shoveler - Helston Boating Lake

Shoveler - Helston Boating Lake

Coot - Helston Boating Lake

Coot - Helston Boating Lake

Rook - Helston Boating Lake

With time now pressing on I spent an hour on the Hayle Estuary scanning the saltmarsh at Lelant. I quickly found the three Cattle Egret reported yesterday and one of the two Iceland Gull plus a Spoonbill - quite a nice selection for such a small area of marsh. Other birds here were Bar-tailed Godwit (3), Greenshank (1), Pintail (5), Wigeon (c.150+) and Mediterranean Gull (3).

Cattle Egret (3) with Herring and Black-headed Gull - Hayle Estuary

Iceland Gull (1st winter) with Wigeon and Herring Gull - Hayle Estuary

Iceland Gull (1st winter) - Hayle Estuary

Iceland Gull (1st winter) with Black-headed Gull - Hayle Estuary

Spoonbill with Redshank and Lesser Black-backed Gull - Hayle Estuary

Spoonbill - Hayle Estuary

Spoonbill with Herring Gull - Hayle Estuary

Bedwyn Brail, Bentley Wood and Bonaparte's Gull - 12th May

Today I had the pleasure of spending a day surveying Bedwyn Brail in Wiltshire close to Shalbourne  this is largely a private site and I was there plotting the distribution of Bluebell and selected Ancient Woodland Vascular Plants (AWVP) within the woodland to inform the location of on-going conservation woodland management. It was a beautiful spring like day and the Bluebell were vibrant, a classic English spring-time scene spread over the floor of this fantastic broad-leaved woodland dotted here with the white dusting of Greater Stitchwort and there with the lemon-tones of Yellow Archangel. Insects were out in full force with many hoverflies including Eristalis pertinax and Eristalis tenax and species I come across less frequerntly such as Xylota signs and Criorina berberina. Butterflies included vibrant Brimstone, Large White and one of my favourite species which seems to be on the wing for a far to brief period in April and May, the Orange-tip with its vibrant orange wing-tips and intricately dappled green underside to the hindwing.

Bluebell - Bedwyn Brail

Greater Stitchwort - Bedwyn Brail

Oiceoptoma thoracicum - Bedwyn Brail

Woundwort Shieldbug - Bedwyn Brail

Xylota segnis - Bedwyn Brail

Criorina berberina - Bedwyn Brail

Bugle - Bedwyn Brail

Red-headed Cardinal - Bedwyn Brail

Orang-tip - Male at Bedwyn Brail

Having finished my survey I decided to head for the nearby Bentley Woods where Pearl-bordered Fritillary had been on the wing for a couple of weeks and within a few minutes I had found my first and in the, by now, mainly cloudy conditions they were readily approachable and during the course of my relatively brief stop I recorded approximately 11 individuals. Other species recorded included three Brimstone, a freshly emerged Fox Moth, Red-headed Cardinal (my second species of Cardinal beetle today), Common Lizard as well as Cuckoo and Tree Pipit.

Pearl-bordered Fritillary - Bentley Woods

Pearl-bordered Fritillary - Bentley Woods

Fox Moth (Female) - Bentley Woods

Green Tiger-beetle - Bentley Woods

I had to be home to take over the care of Tobias by 18:30 but I calculated that there was just enough time to sneak a quick twitch for the Bonaparte’s Gull that has been frequenting Riverside park and Chessel Bay Local Nature Reserve (LNR) I first went to Riverside Park where there was little to be seen but for a few Herring, Black-headed and Lesser Black-backed Gull so I decided to head for Chessel Bay where the Bonaparte’s has been regularly seen feeding on the foreshore in the afternoons. After a brief scan there was nothing to be seen but I continued scanning around and eventually saw a gull lurking on the shore-line, a brief and distant view and I was pretty much convinced that this was the Bonaparte’s. I spent the rest of the late afternoon trying to get some half decent photos in pretty harsh low angle light before heading home.

Lesser Black-backed Gull (1st Summer) - Riverside Park, Southampton

Bonaparte's Gull (1st Summer) - Chessel Bay, Southampton

Bonaparte's Gull (1st Summer) - Chessel Bay, Southampton

Bonaparte's Gull (1st Summer) - Chessel Bay, Southampton