Oldham

Yellow-legged gull

Today's plan went awry at the outset so I ended up drifting over to have a wander round Alexandra Park in Oldham. The wood duck seems to have decided to spend the Winter and a Caspian gull has been visiting over the past few days and I thought that seeing one or the other would be worth the trip. And I wanted a better look at the park, too, as the last time I came it was quite late in the day so I didn't really explore the place. It turns out to be bigger than I thought and it's a nice walk round.

Walking down from the bus stop on Ashton Road I could see gulls wheeling round low over the park. A few black-headed gulls flew overhead and a herring gull whizzed by at rooftop height. 

Herons lurking on the heronry

There were perhaps a hundred and fifty black-headed gulls on the park, split evenly between the pools. They easily out-competed the mallards and Canada geese for the bird food being thrown by little kids. There were a couple of dozen tufted ducks about and a pair of goosanders, the drake on one pool and the duck on the other, but no sign of the wood duck. There were four herons about, at one stage they were all in the same tree poking about on last year's nests.

Drake goosander

Duck goosander

While the black-headed gulls were pretty much settled on the pools the few larger gulls that were about didn't tend to stay long. A common gull stayed long enough to steal food off a black-headed gull before flying off into the distance. A herring gull came in, had a splash about and a preen then headed off towards the town centre. 

Black-headed gulls and yellow-legged gull

A second-Winter (I think) yellow-legged gull came in a few times to feed but didn't stay more than a few minutes at a time before taking flight. This bird puzzled me a lot: at first I thought it was a herring gull with a big beak (of which there are many) but the darkness of the grey of the mantle seemed to be more than a trick of the light. Its head was a lot more heavily-streaked than I'd expect for a YLG and it didn't have the blocky, box-like head that would make me feel confident with the identification. The clincher came the second time it took flight and I got a good look at it for a couple of minutes. The extensively black primaries and secondaries (and especially the primary coverts) really jumped out and the clean black tail band contrasted with the pure white of the base of the tail and upper tail coverts. (And yes, I did still have to confirm the ID with my reference books when I got home.)

Yellow-legged gull

Yellow-legged gull

A chap wearing bins told me the Caspian gull had been around an hour or so earlier, stopping to preen before flying off towards the school on the other side of the road. I decided to have a walk round the park then come back and stake out the big pool where all the large gull action had been happening. It took half an hour's watching and even then it was a fluke as I happened to glance up and see the Caspian gull floating over the South end of the pool at treetop height and disappear over the trees across the road. I would really struggle with any Caspian gull that wasn't a first-Winter or an adult, luckily this bird was an adult: long-winged, long-necked, dark grey above and with a ridiculously long bill. Just as well, I didn't get much more than a minute's look at it.

 It seems like the more "odd" large gulls I see the less confident I am with their identification, I'm finding them more intimidating not less!

Alexandra Park

I walked back through the park and took a circuitous route home which gave me the opportunity to have a look at a couple of bits of semi-rural Oldham that I don't know while the jackdaws and woodpigeons went to roost.