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| Cape Gull |
My planned lazy Sunday yesterday was interrupted mid-morning by an RBA alert telling me that a Cape Gull had been found at Grafham water in Cambridgeshire. Now, if confirmed, this would be as mega as its gets being the first UK record of this South African Gull. My birding pal Nick from Bicester and I were soon messaging each other along the lines of “are you going?”, “has the identity been confirmed?” Gulls are notoriously difficult to identify, not least because they hybridise very ready, but photographic evidence soon confirmed the identify and what will almost certainly be the biggest twitch of the year was on!
The Kelp Gull is a common bird in maritime Southern Hemisphere with five recognised subspecies. One of these subspecies, namely the southern African vetula which goes by the common name of Cape Gull, accounts for all accepted Kelp Gull records in the Western Palearctic. The Cape Gull, which breeds commonly in coastal southern Africa, has been gradually spreading northwards during the last 20 years along the coast of West Africa.
The first Western Palearctic record occurred in 1995 in Paris. This was a real outlier and caused considerable debate but was eventually accepted as there were no records of this bird being kept in captivity. All was then quite until 2103 when 3 adults were discovered near Faro in Portugal. Between 2013 and 2018 there were a number of further European records from coastal Iberia. Given the northward expansion of its range there has been an increasingly likelihood of a UK record so perhaps the first Uk record was a matter of if rather than when.
A two hour drive through fairly heavy holiday traffic had me arriving at Grafham water at 13:45. The presence of many birders was immediately obvious with the usual mega twitch precession of contented birders slowly making their way back to the car park and anxious birders rushing in the opposite direction to see the bird. A nervous 10 minute walk later I saw a large number of birders looking over the reservoir wall and I got there just in time to see the bird on the beach for 15 seconds before it flew off! Oh well if it had done a bunk at least I had seen it! As I walked with the crowd in the direction the bird had flown I heard a shout of “Jim” and there was Nick and Anne who had arrived a little earlier and had had good view on the Gull. I said hello and then rather rudely rushed off to try and get a better view of the star attraction – many apologies Nick!
I met Oxon birder Ewan and chatted as we walked along the reservoir wall in the direction of the gull. News came through that it had again settled down and was tucking into what appeared to be a large trout. When we arrived we were treated to frame filling views of this new celebrity vigorously demolishing the trout as if this was the first thing it had eaten since leaving South Africa.
The key characteristics were all on display, a bulky bird with long gangly greyish green legs, a heavy bulbous tipped bill, an extremely broad white trailing edge to the wing and very black upper parts perhaps even darker than our common Great Black-backed Gull.
The trout demolition continued for 15 or 20 minutes and then the gull, heavily laden with fish, flew out into the middle of the reservoir and landed on the water. I said my goodbyes to Ewan and quickly checked on my other Seagull love who were playing Man U in their first game of the season. We were winning 0-2 – could the day possibly get any better!
A further 2 hour drive had me home in time to cook our traditional Sunday evening roast nicely rounding off a birding day that will surely won't be bettered this year!
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