Caspian gull - G.O Sars, Feb 6th

What a massive surprise this bird was! It first appeared circling round the boat when we were mid survey - and appeared three times before disappearing (presumably into the melee behind the boat) for a few hours. It was incredibly striking in flight, but I wasn't convinced I had enough to nail an ID of such an off the radar spp. That set up a pretty tense few hours where we continued to survey but in reality all I wanted to do was look off the back of the boat! Fortunately it was still present when we stopped to trawl, and eventually it did the very decent thing and landed on the vessel.

It's been claimed as a first for Shetland - which is a little strange as it was at least 100 miles off Shetland (I think - must check though). It was definitely in Scottish waters though, which means it's a bit of a mega.

Doing a little digging, there are 4 records accepted between 2006 and 2009 (see here) and a further 3 reported to Birdguides after that - although 1 of those was only reported as a probable. That means that my bird is likely to be at the very most the 7th record for Scotland. I'll have that! Obviously it an SBRC rare, so here are the annotated pics that were submitted with the description.

January 5th, the mighty Quinn!

After the news broke of a harlequin on the Don after dark on Sunday, I went into a bit of a fluster hoping it would stick around and hoping I'd be able to twitch it before work today - especially after the photos were put on line, showing it to be a 1st summer bird. First light today (well, actually well before first light!) found Will Miles and I pacing along the River Don in Seaton Park, enjoying dipper, kingfisher and an otter before getting the call that Nick Littlewood had relocated the bird.

After a short walk along the river (literally about 30 yards from where Will and I stopped and turned round 20 minutes before...) there it was, perched up on rocks by the river before taking to the water and feeding, sometimes down to a range of about 15 metres. With frame filling views through the scope revealing plenty of that steely blue plumage coming in around the face, it was an absolutely stunning little bird. Sneaking through the rapids here and there, briefly popping out of the water onto a rock and then feeding some more before flying up the river, it entertained us for a good half hour. Encouragingly, it looked nice and settled - with the tooing and froing up and down the river probably quite natural behaviour. Here's hoping it hangs around for some time, developing it's breeding plumage and being as showy in better light than today!

Unringed...but not particularly wary!

After that the patch seemed a little tame this lunchtime, although the river duck theme was continued with my first patch goosander of the year.