Widnes

Mute swan, Spike Island

Another bright Spring day so I decided to head over to Widnes which seems to be going through one of its golden patches for gulls and ruddy shelducks. The plan was to see if I could find the Kumlein's gull that's been reported the past couple of days on the river and then have a wander round Spike Island to see what was about. Kumlein's gull isn't a taxon I've ever seen and it hasn't been on my radar at all, it's one of those that I associate with hardcore Irish gullwatchers.

I got the train to Warrington and thence the 110 to Widnes, getting off at the stop before the Silver Jubilee Bridge and walked down to the river. I passed under the bridge and almost immediately bumped into half a dozen birdwatchers who were scanning the river.

Herring gulls and lesser black-backs, River Mersey, Widnes

I had hopes that the Kumlein's gull would be in one of the rafts of large gulls loafing above the sandbanks that had been flooded by the tide. Of course I couldn't be that lucky, it was in the crowd of gulls on a distant sandbank on the other side of the river. Luckily it was a bunch of very nice birdwatchers who insisted on my having a look at the bird through their telescopes. There was no chance I could have picked it up with my binoculars but it jumped out of the crowd on the 'scope. 

Had I not been primed beforehand I'm not convinced I would have identified it as a Kumlein's had I just bumped into it. It was definitely an Iceland-type white-winged gull and at a guess a second-Winter bird, it wasn't an adult and it looked too patchy for a first-Winter. Structurally it wasn't quite like the Iceland gulls I've seen, it didn't have the same gently rounded head and the wings didn't look so long. The outer primary wing feathers were darker than the inner ones, a cold mid-brown sort of colour. It would have been nice to have seen the wings spread out and be able to see the tail pattern but it wasn't to be. Once I'd pinpointed its position by the telescope I tried to pick it out through my binoculars and failed dismally. It works sometimes, not this time.

There's a Kumlein's gull out there somewhere near the big white blob, River Mersey, Widnes

Carrion crows, herring gulls, lesser black-backs and shelducks, River Mersey, Widnes.
This photo's very heavily cropped and you'll probably still need to zoom in on the picture to see very much.
I think the Kumlein's gull is the pale bird directly below the big white blob. 

I wandered down the path into the West Bank Docklands Park to have a look round. There were more gulls and blackcaps and chiffchaffs sang in the trees. I added green-veined white and large white to the year's butterfly list and enjoyed the scenery looking out over the Mersey. One of the birds in a distant raft of large gulls caught my eye, a rangy looking gull with a small head. I walked a little further ahead and got a better view of it, definitely a Caspian gull, probably the first-Winter bird that's been reported hereabouts a few times recently. I've got my eye in for the structure of Caspian gulls for identification purposes but I'm still not remotely confident about ageing them.

Silver Jubilee Bridge 

I headed back to go and have a wander round Spike Island and as I approached the birdwatchers they shouted over to me: "Peregrines!" And sure enough, there was a pair of peregrines on the railway bridge. There was a lot of calling between the two as they courted amongst the iron spars, the female doing a lot of come-hither tail fanning and crouching.

Peacock butterfly, Spike Island

Thanking them again I eventually made my way over to Spike Island. On a whim I ignored Google Maps and turned onto the river and a good job I did, too. The Victoria Promenade is a very nice walk around the head of West Bank and leads almost directly onto Spike Island (there's a housing development in the way just before Spike Island so you have to walk down the road for about a hundred yards). I could hear Canada geese but it took me ages to find where they were loafing on the far bank. There was an egret with them that didn't look like a little egret but I wasn't convinced I was getting a correct sense of scale. Luckily there was a heron a little further along the bank so I could confirm it was a great white egret.

Spike Island 

The canal was busy with mute swans, Canada geese, mallards and coots with a few tufted ducks and moorhens to break the monotony. The whooper swan that was resident here for a couple of years has either moved on or passed over. Blackcaps, chiffchaffs and goldfinches sang in the trees and black-headed gulls peppered this stretch of the river. Over near the Gateway Bridge a crowd of Canada geese, herring gulls, oystercatchers and redshanks sat on the bank to wait out the tide while a pair of teal flew out and settled on the river. There were plenty of common shelducks and a little egret further upstream but no sign of any ruddy shelducks. Serves me right for being greedy. 

I added a speckled wood to the butterfly list, had a bit of a sit down to record my notes and set off for the bus back to Warrington, arriving with plenty of time for the train back to my doorstep. One of those days when everything works just so, they don't happen very often and they're to be savoured when they do.

I was today years old when I discovered that alexanders has a light, pleasant scent