The Deskbound Birder: Ross's Gull, Ferrybridge, Dorset

Thursday, 8 March 2018

Ross's Gull, Ferrybridge, Dorset - 6th March

On 21st February I was birding at Pennington Marsh when news broke, mid-morning, of an adult Ross's Gull that had been seen at Ferrybridge flying up the Fleet. I toyed with abandoning Pennington and driving straight to the bird but as the bird appeared to have disappeared I abstained. Later that afternoon the bird was relocated at Lodmoor RSPB and stunning photographs then emerged on the various social media outlets. I was well and truly gripped, I am a great fan of gulls and consider the smaller gulls (Ross's Gull, Little Gull and Sabine's Gull) as some of our most beautiful and enigmatic species. So, I checked my diary and with dismay realised I had no availability to go for this bird, a mere one hour 15 minutes from home, for at least a week due to work and family commitments. The bird lingered and my diary stayed packed until a slot, the 2nd March, became available in my diary. But, on 1st March the 'Beast from the East' struck a low pressure system, Storm Emma, that approached from the south and southern England was gripped by heavy snow and the roads were gridlocked so I had to cancel my plans - unsurprisingly the bird was not seen that day. I then reviewed my diary and the next slot that I could create was on the 6th March and so that was the plan.

I checked the weather and the bird news on the 5th and all was looking positive. The bird was rather unpredictable in occurrence moving between Ferrybridge, Radipole RSPB, Lodmoor RSPB and occasionally disappearing, presumably to sea for extended periods. But I headed to bed early, set my alarm for 04:00 and was on the road by 05:00 arriving at Ferrybridge at 06:30. Setting up my scope by the Chesil Beach Cafe I scanned The Fleet but there were few gulls, but I picked up a small gull in flight and which I could see had a wedged shaped tail and broad white trailing edge to the secondaries and inner primaries - that was it, the Ross's Gull but it was distant and the bird soon headed inland, seemingly towards Radipole Lake RSPB. My views were brief, distant and quite unsatisfactory. It was then a waiting game, I scanned the gulls but there were only a handful of Black-headed Gull and Herring Gull. There were around 300 Brent Goose and I soon picked out a Pale-bellied Brent, waterbirds included a handful of Red-breasted Merganser, Great-crested Grebe and Little Grebe and waders included Dunlin, Oystercatcher and Redshank. By around 08:00 a few more Black-headed Gull arrived and a total of 13 lovely summer plumaged Mediterranean Gull showed well and were calling away. There was quite a traffic queue on the approach to Weymouth and as the Ross's Gull had been showing at Radipole RSPB during the late mornings I decided to hedge my bets and join the traffic to get to Radipole. It took around 30 minutes to get to the reserve car park and there were around 15 birders there so I joined the ranks and began to scan the island and lake in front of the visitor centre. There were a dozen or so Mediterranean Gull, Black-headed Gull, Herring Gull, Lesser Black-backed Gull, Great Black-backed Gull and a few Common Gull but no sign of the Ross's Gull. I decided to stick it out for a couple of hours but other than 45 Snipe and good views of Tufted Duck giving their rather odd wheezing calls there was little to be seen.

At 10:40 news broke of the Ross's Gull back at Ferrybridge but, knowing that the bird was pretty mobile and often didn't stay at one spot for long, the assembled birders stayed put on the assumption that it would probably show at Radipole. At 11:30 news broke again that the bird was still at Ferrybridge and a mad dash through Weymouth ensued with all lights seemingly on red. It took around 25 minutes to get to Ferrybridge and on setting up my scope I soon picked up the Ross's Gull and put other birders onto it. Walking along the pavement adjacent to the A354 we edged nearer and obtained some fairly good views of this stunning little pink-tinged Arctic gull with its silvery primaries and distinctive neck-ring. The Ross's Gull was with a flock of Mediterranean Gull which must have numbered around 500 birds and far out numbered the Black-headed Gull. This was quite an amazing sight in itself. The Ross's Gull flew and headed over Chesil Beach to the sea showing its broad white trailing edge and diamond shaped tail but it soon returned and again settled with the Mediterranean Gull's . At around 13:00 the bird took flight and headed out to sea once more and I decided it was time to head for home having obtained good views of the target bird. My photos are not as good as others online but my views were all at a moderate distance. The bird has shown particularly well especially when it appears at Radipole where it occasionally sits in the car park - still I was very happy with my views and I headed home satisfied.

There have been 97 accepted British records of Ross's Gull to the end of 2016, with an additional 22 Irish records to the end of 2014. The prime counties being Shetland with 17 records followed by Yorkshire with 13 records. The peak month of occurrence is January with over 40 records and adults make up over 75% of all occurrences. I have previously seen two Ross's Gull in the UK, the first a superb pink adult at Blackstone Meadow on the Plym Estuary in January 2002 and the second a rather tatty looking 1st summer bird that summered at Bowling Green Marsh RSPB, Exeter in 2014, see here. Britain is the only country in the world that I have seen this species but I would love to visit Barrow in October where a regular passage of thousands of birds occurs, see here.