Wild gull chase

Herring gull, Widnes

A morning which has promised so much showed its true colours and carried on until lunchtime so I ran a few errands in the hail and hoped for the best. Late lunchtime the sun came out and, much to my surprise, so did nearly two dozen spadgers that had evidently got fed up skulking in the wings. I'm trying to work out how many coal tits there are; the pair fly in from the station but there's a male singing a few doors down, it would be nice to have a couple of pairs about.

The weather looked like behaving itself but I really didn't want to go slutching about knee deep in mud so I decided to go over to Widnes to see if I could have any luck seeing the Kumlien's gull that's been in the crowds on the recycling centre by Ditton Road. I got the train into Warrington and it was just late enough for me trot briskly over to the bus station to wave the 110 goodbye. So I got the 62 into Murdishaw and got the 110 to Widnes, arriving at Ashley Way about quarter of an hour after I would have had I caught the planned bus.

It would surprise the reader not one bit that by the time I arrived at Warrington it was raining. It stopped as we passed the mallards on the canal at Moore and it was sunny at Murdishaw. On the approach to Runcorn the sky went black and it sheeted down. I debated staying on the bus and going back to Warrington but a burst of bloody-mindedness had me getting off the bus and walking down to Ditton Road just as the rain stopped.

There were plenty of gulls flying about and sitting on rooftops along Ashley Way and I checked them all out. It would be just my luck to walk past my quarry because it was sitting on a roof on the wrong side of the motorway. Walking down I aimed for the cloud of gulls just over on the other side.

Once I passed under the motorway I was a bit spoilt for choice. There was a huge cloud of large gulls over the recycling centre on my side of the road and a couple of hundred gulls, mostly black-headed gulls, on the vacant lot on the other side of the road. I had a quick sken through the black-headed gulls and found handfuls of herring gulls and lesser black-backs. Having got my eye in I then turned my attention to the confusing swirling mass on my side of the road.

There were buildings and trees between the road and the centre of the gulls' attention so there weren't many extended clear views of any of the birds. Standing at the corner where the slip road meets Ditton Road I had a view through a gap that let me see a fair part of the flock as it flailed around. I couldn't reliably say how many birds there were, it was three figures certainly but how many more than that would be a wild guess. I think there were roughly equal numbers of lesser black-backs and herring gulls with a few black-headed gulls. Every so often half the black-headed gulls from across the road would come over, swirl around with the rest then float back over the road.

There was a confusion of herring gulls of all ages. The adults and near-adults ranging from big, dark, beefy argentatus males to relatively pale and dinky argenteus females. A couple of pale herring gulls turned out to be pale herring gulls. A sandy looking first-Winter bird got my hopes up for a glaucous gull but the dark bill and primaries were those of a very faded herring gull. Ten minutes in I had a bit of luck: a pale "herring gull" flew up over the buildings and wheeled round before dipping back below. In the process of doing that wheel and dip I could see that its wing-tips were silvery grey, not black. I had me a Kumlien's! I tried in vain to find it again in the crowd. Eventually I began to suspect a case of wishful thinking.

There were a couple of blokes with bins at a pull-in a bit further down on the other side of the road, perhaps they were getting better views down there. I wandered down, found another gap to look through and found I'd been getting better views where I had been. I gave it ten minutes, just in case the change of angle might work in my favour, but I wasn't having any luck. I took a few photos of herring gulls so I'd have something to illustrate this blog post and prove I had actually been out, honestly.

Herring gull, Widnes

Back at the corner I found a couple of common gulls I'd missed in the crowd. Then I got another glimpse of a pale herring gull, and yes! grey primaries. It eventually made a third, very brief appearance, just to confirm I hadn't been making it up. The chances of my getting a photo were pretty remote, I decided to call it a day before I pushed my luck too far with the weather.

I took the footpath to Victoria Road for the 110 back to Warrington. The very skittish pair of stonechats on the motorway embankment were a nice bonus.