Upton Warren twitch - Glossy Ibis

A wet Tuesday morning and at 08.00 my phone pings with a message. I am oblivious to this and carry on to work. At 10.00 another ping, and this time I hear it. The message, from Terry, says the Glossy Ibis has just flown off. I check my phone and find the earlier message which said Glossy Ibis at Upton Warren NOW. (Quick apology; when I changed phones lately I lost all my saved contacts and am slowly building them up again, so I'm not sure who sent the original text, but thank you anyway).

During the day it became apparent that the Ibis hadn't gone far, and it was reported several times back at the Flashes. So this evening I was making a quick about turn, and whizzing over to Upton.

The bird was standing in a field just beyond the reserve, and I took some terrible photos in the terrible light. However, luck was on my side. I decided I really should go and look at some Avocets, so I left Mike W, Gert, and Dave W watching the bird and headed that way. I was then delayed by some half-heard snatches of birdsong which, I must admit, I couldn't quite identify. Next thing I know Mike W is striding towards me with news that the Ibis has flown in the direction of the Flashes.

We hurried to the main hide and scanned the grassy edges thinking it could be there, but to no avail. So I started looking at the hundreds of Black-headed Gulls, and dozen or so Avocets in front of the hide. And there it was, right in front of us.

Glossy Ibis

It was very nice to be back at Upton Warren. It's so different from the 1980's when Black-headed Gulls were quite scarce, Lapwings were everywhere, and the prospect of a Glossy Ibis turning up was too fanciful to be on anyone's wish list.

You didn't see any of these either:

I asked Mike about the hybrid Mediterranean Gull X Black-headed Gull. He scanned for a nano-second and showed me the bird.

Hybrid MedxBHG

A very interesting bird, properly black (not chocolate) headed with a classic 2nd winter Med Gull wing pattern, but no bigger than a B H Gull, and with a slender B H Gull sized bill.

Fans of reading about me seeing bugger all at Morton Bagot can be assured that normal service will be resumed at the weekend.