Rainham Today, and more Gull Headaches

A text from a fellow London birder whilst I was in Tescos helping them on their way to another few billion got me fairly excited. "Turnstone on Crayford foreshore" was the gist of it. Not easily visible from the cereal aisle in Leytonstone, so we finished up and hurried home to unpack. At this point people who know a bit about London geography may wonder why I was getting excited. Surely Crayford is in Kent, on the south side of the river? And the title of this post is "Rainham Today blah blah blah", not "What I saw in Kent Today" Well yes, it is, and also, yes it is, but you see, I don't worry about small details like that. Crayford is opposite Rainham, and that is good enough for me. If I can see it from Rainham, on it goes for the Rainham list. This is obviously slightly tricky if it ever came to a rarity, as I'd have it on my patch list, but the record would be down in the books as being at another site, and it wouldn't be down as having been at Rainham at all, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Literally - if was a really good one, I would have to go across the QE2 Bridge to get a good look, which would be a problem as although I know where Crayford is, I have no idea how to actually get there. Opinions vary on this one; there was some talk about creating notional airspace boundaries for local patches, in the case of Rainham, one that goes along the centre of the river, but it becomes impossible to judge accurately. I think the general concensus was that though it wasn't perfect, if you or the bird are on the patch, that'll do. Well, I was on the patch, the Turnstone wasn't, but I saw it, so it doesn't matter. It's not like it's a site tick anyway, as I have had them on the Rainham side of the river before now. I'm slightly stricter for more well defined boundaries, like counties. I was once twitching a White-winged Black Tern on the Kent side of the river. At the time it was a lifer, so I didn't care where it was. Once the initial euphoria had worn off though, I realised that it wouldn't have to go too far across the river to be in Essex airspace and get itself on another meaningless list, so I started willing it to do just that. Happily it obliged by flying over to the other side and actually plonking down on the mud; I didn't even have to take a punt on where halfway across the river was.

Anyway, flush with success at nailing the Turnstone, I continued on to the actual reserve in high spirits. A Jay was a 2010 patch tick close to the visitor centre, but there wasn't much else of note about until I got round to the Target Pools. Uh oh, there are Gulls on there. Maybe I can just close my eyes, walk past them? We need to get home for lunch, yes that's right, the girls need lunch, no time to stop and look. They will all be boring anyway, as all Gulls are. We'll just carry straight on past....

On my second scan through them, my worst fears were confirmed - a tall bird, white-headed with a long, slim beak. Given my track record, you would be forgiven for thinking Little Egret, but this was actually a Gull. Hurrah, I am 50% of the way there with the ID already! Now for the trickier part. Hmmm, small, dark eye - yes. Pale bill, dark tip. Hmmm. Looks slim, no obvious gonywotsit thingy. Hmmm. Long thin legs, a lot above the knee, hmmm, could it be? No, don't be silly, you're rubbish at this, it will be a really common species that all people other than yourself will find really really easy to nail. Quite a bit of grey mantle beginning to come through, does that make it an advanced second winter or a third winter? I'm not really sure. No obvious primary spots. Maybe. Hmmm. The head shape actually looks quite good as well, like a pear. And very white, with minimal streaking on the nape. Hmmm. Quite a striking tertial crescent, is that even relevant, no idea. What I need right now is a helicopter to fly over, then they will all disappear and WE WILL NEVER KNOW. Oh, they're all still there. Shit. I could probably get a photo of it. Several photos of it. OK, what the hell, here we go. I am going to stick my neck out and say that this IS a third (or second) winter Caspian Gull, and I have photos (after a fashion...) to prove it. Sacrificial Altar, here I come again....