Saturday August 31 - Earlswood Lakes

 When I go birding I typically complete a circuit, trying to cover as much ground as possible. But there is another approach. What if I just stay in the same place to see what flies over? This is known as vizmigging (visual migration watching) and can be productive on a hill top at the right time of the year.

Now is the right time of year, and will be throughout the autumn, it's just a question of picking the right spot and having the patience. It also helps if you start at dawn. This morning I fancied it, so I drove to Earlswood to try my luck on the causeway. 

I arrived just after 09.00, much too late really. Nevertheless I gave it a go and at 10.10 it paid off. Admittedly I'd wandered down the side of Engine Pool to try to get a closer look at an interesting large gull (more of that later), and had just returned to the causeway when I noticed a small bird flying rapidly across the road at some height. I realised it was a wader and as I got on it I was lucky that it called, confirming its identity as a Dunlin. It wasn't hanging around, and I reckon it had left the area by the time I'd finished Whatsapp-ing the news out.

As far as visible migration is concerned that was it, but it was a year-tick and even a site tick, so I was well pleased. A little later on another wader appeared, but this was just a Common Sandpiper, the one wader which will land at Earlswood when there is next to no shoreline.

As for the gull, it was an immature large gull and I was wondering whether it was a Yellow-legged Gull. I knew there had been a third calendar year bird here recently, but this bird was younger. I photographed it and after pouring over reference books and on-line photos at home concluded it was probably a second calendar year bird of that species. 

It's primary feathers are still growing which is why it doesn't look long winged. I must admit I find immature Herring/Lesser Black-back type gulls very difficult, and I may have got it wrong.

Common Sandpiper - definitely.

PS: The feedback I have been getting on the Gull has so far been inconclusive, but a tentative identification as Lesser Black-backed Gull seems to be favoured. At least I'm not alone in finding the subject difficult.