10,000 Birds

I’m lucky enough to spend a great deal of time flying around the world finding unusual birds, but every so often I get lucky enough to find that something unusual has flown round the world to me. At about 15:30 an email popped up to say that a Franklin’s Gull had been found on a flooded field just twenty miles from where I live! To be completely honest, the Franklin’s had been showing up every so often for about eight weeks, but this was the first time it had stayed in one place for two days, and I just happened to have the time to go and see it. Not a big deal? Not if you live in central North America perhaps, but I’ve only seen three Franklin’s Gulls before - and remarkably every one has been in the UK. Yes, despite birding regularly in California, Washington/BC, Florida, New York etc I have never seen a Franklin’s Gull in North America - which when you’re doing a Big Year is something to bear in mind when one turns up close to home.

Close to home it may have been (exactly 20 miles according to my tacho), but close to where I could stand it was not. This particular Franklin’s was found feeding on a flooded sports-pitch inside the Cadbury’s complex at Keynsham, near Bristol, and common courtesy dictated that visiting birders could not take steps on to the grass of the pitches to get a little closer (that and the concern, of course, that trying to get closer may well have resulted in the bird flying off and the site-owners banning any more birders). Hence the photos below are decidely of the “record shot” type rather than the “wow, how did you manage that!” type. Never mind, at least it’s vaguely recognisable thanks to the technological miracle of 12 megapixels and the sharpening tool in Photoshop…

Yes, both those photos were taken from exactly the same spot with the same lens. I’m not sure that’s something I should be proud about, but I thought it worth mentioning.

The majority of the other gulls present were Black-headed, but there were good numbers of Common Gulls too, and at least one Mediterranean Gull. You may have to take my word for this, but the photo below actually really does show all those three species at the same time (which may be a world first, but probably isn’t - twenty years ago when Mediterranean Gulls were really scarce in the UK it might have been I suppose, but perhaps not now…).

Anyway, rather fortunately, when I first arrived at the site I went to the wrong area - and stumbled across a flock of finches, five of which were Brambling, a winter visitor to the UK I’d somehow managed to avoid so far this year, and had missed in Japan where they’re often abundant! Having already seen my first Willow Tit of the year while out on a walk with Jo and Evie, I’d just seen three new for the year on what had otherwise been shaping up to be a very ordinary day birding-wise. Great stuff. Surprisingly, though, there was more to come: on my way to picking up Emily (my eldest daughter) from a school “do” this evening a Barn Owl flew across the road in front of me. Barn Owls breed around here so it was always a matter of “when” I’d see one rather than “if” - but it’s always good to see a special bird like that when you’re not really looking…

I’m off to Singapore tomorrow, and a promised morning’s birding to Panti Forest in Malaysia. Could be a very good few days. Mind you, it’s already been a very good few months…