Hel Hath No Birdies

It's been a hectic Summer, so hectic that I haven't made it up to the Summer house at Hämeenkyrö...until this weekend. With my success of finding a juv Caspian Gull last week at Lohja, I was keen to get down to Tarastenjärvi to check there.  Between years, you can just never tell what these waste center companies will be up to at their sites. Will there even be gulls there at all. I had seen no reports of any gulls all year from this location. Maybe they had sterilized the place like other dumps. Luckily, though there had been changes to the site, they were all positive changes with good Gull numbers present. Barely 2 minutes parked overlooking the trash pile and I picked up a beauty of a juv. Caspian. The pick up - spotting the Casp at distance. Caspian Gull - already beautifully pale I rolled down the drive to the bottom of the trash pile for close up views. The EV was great for this have to say. Completely silent running.  Edit: Interestingly this Caspian Gull, found on the...

With the recent sighting of another South Polar Skua in Irish waters, from the Bridges of Ross, Co. Clare, I thought it worthwhile to put together a History of the species in Ireland. Loop Head, Co. Clare. 18.08.2006 The first claim I can source relates to a bird seen by Jonathan Williams and John Gregory from Loop Head itself (as opposed the Bridges of Ross, which is located further back along the north coast of the Loop peninsula).  The description by Jonathan is included below.  Catharacta Skua sp   18th August 2006   Loop Head   County Clare   Observers : John Gregory(JG) and Jonathan Williams (JW)   Time : 09:45 to 10.15   Weather : mostly overcast, light behind observers giving good visibility and viewing  conditions.  Wind : NE Breeze having dropped from a moderate north-easterly the previous  day.   Optics : Swaroski EL 85x42 and 10x42. Kowa TSN4- 30x wide angle and Swaroski ...

August has rolled around and I was prompted out to both test my new Electric Vehicle (which I love) and try my arm at finding a juv Caspian Gull. The new girl in my life I decided to hit Lohja dump, as it would make a good motorway test for the new car. The dump hadn't scored a Caspian Gull in some time due to various processing changes at that site, so I didn't hold out much hope of success.  When I reached the food waste building there was only some 20 gulls or so on it. Damn...likely to be a bust.  Nothing on the west facing roof, so I spun round to the east facing roof. Nothing there either. A quick 3 point turn, intent on leaving and decided to scan once more...and suddenly, there on the corner of the roof, out of nowhere was a stunner juv Caspian Gull. 😎 Caspian Gull - that's how it's done Photobomb Look at that tail - but then...they all have lovely bottoms The bird showed well when it wasn't being flushed by Goshawks but only hung around about half an hour ...