Iceland Gull, Great Grey Shrike and divers: nice day for a white winger

I'm not a gull guy.  Honestly, they don't do much for me.  I know the purists will point to identification challenges, and the ubiquitous nature of the gulls of the UK, and I know there are some beautiful species of gull.  But.  They're just, you know, gulls.  The very quality of being ever present in or over almost all environments in this country possibly breeds some contempt, and I am guilty of being one of those people who sighs when others find scarce gulls in local flocks and says out loud, "I should really learn my gulls properly," and then discards that statement like a New Year Resolution on January 6th.  

I've encountered a little hierarchy of birding expertise - people who can "do gulls" seem to be venerated and given extra credit, and fair play to those who have spent that much time sorting through flocks of at least fifty shades of grey: you were willing to put the time in to learn all those variable plumages and frankly, I'm not.  Why not?  Well, my sock drawer needs sorting.  My lawn seems to be growing and I want to check.  This pot needs watching or else it may boil.  I'm a hypocrite of the highest order, and I'm happy to be honest about that.  I will watch a flock of 10,000 geese and wonder at their beauty and spend hours sorting through the flock to find a single, slightly differently plumaged individual where I just will not with a flock of a thousand gulls.  

Don't get me wrong, I won't just dismiss them.  I will look, and I will try.  But if I lose my place in the flock I'm not retreading my steps.  If I see a grubby juvenile or intermediate plumage I'll give it the best I have, but won't lose any sleep over whether it was an argentatus or argenteus or graellsii and I will not make any effort to be on top of the species the taxonomists separate whether they be Caspian Gulls or Vega Gulls or whichever other species I need to count primary feathers to be able to split.  I've stood with groups of birders counting gulls coming into roost and they're picking out all sorts of stuff in the half dark in -3⁰C in a head wind.  I've just got frozen snot on my face and tears from the gusts of icy air, I can't feel my feet or my hands or honestly most of the rest of me, and in those moments I don't really care if there are 1310 Herring Gulls or 1308 and two birds that used to be Herring Gulls but are now something new but almost bloody identical.  I know these counts are important for science, but this is one of the primary reasons why I never went into science as a profession: I do not have the patience to dedicate myself to this.  

I exaggerate, of course.  I enjoy finding the odd Caspian or Yellow-legged Gull at roost locally, and I'm not awful at finding them.  I picked one out of a big flock on Scilly last October, and had the quiet respect of other gullers when I did.  But I lack the passion that the true larophiles possess.  The unquenchable appetite that keeps driving them out to roosts throughout winter, evening after evening, counting and counting, and finding the odd ones out.  Perhaps like those who obsessively sea-watch, it takes a certain kind of personality, a certain always-burning ember of hope that a scarce one could be in the flock.  It's definitely something I lack.

All this long preamble builds up to the bird of my week: an Iceland Gull in Leeds was bucking the trend of my usual experience of white-wingers by a) coming in close, b) being present all day instead of the very last knockings of light, and c) being absolutely gorgeous in its patterns and behaviours.  A long day spent catching up with the Great Grey Shrike (singing over a winter territory - not something I've ever heard before) and some brilliant views of surprisingly elusive Great Northern and Black-throated Divers on Covenham Reservoir was brought to a conclusion with this stop off in north Leeds half way home.  Sometimes a bird will pick a location that it really shouldn't.  When I pulled up at the side of an ornamental lake with more families feeding Mute Swans than birders looking for gulls I was surprised to say the least.  When we get Iceland Gulls in Manchester/South Lancashire they tend to be a mile away in the dark on Lower Rivington Reservoir, or in the most awkward and central part of Pennington Flash, concealed by five thousand other gulls.  I saw this one fly by from the car.

Associating with Black-headed Gulls rather than the small number of Common and Herring present on the lake, the Iceland Gull was never further than 20 metres away.  Sitting on the water, actively flapping and preening, feeding, and playing with a piece of pond weed, the juvenile bird was superficially what I hate about gulls: crypto-plumaged, a bit dirty-looking.  But those wings!  That long shaft of white where there's always black and mirrors on most of the gulls I see.  The almost translucent quality of the white on the primaries as the wings flapped or were held long and straight for the gull to glide in and take bread from a screaming toddler.  The intricate shapes across the plumage and especially the head and around the eyes.  The delicate pink of the exposed skin on the legs and the base of the bill where it quickly darkens.  The bill has a shape like some sort of obscure tool, geometrically precise along the gonys angle in a satisfying way.  The best giveaway though was that the shape and size of this gull was so different.  It just sat in the water differently to Herring Gulls, and had a little more mass than a Common.

It stood out.  If it flew, it was so easy to pick back up, almost like it was naturally highlighted as different.  An epiphany, then: is this what it's like for true gullers when they really get to know what they're looking for?  Do they have this experience of beauty and recognition from half a mile through a telescope in the frozen depths of winter?  Do 3rd winter Caspian Gulls really give them the warm feelings of joy and fulfilment that my Iceland Gull experience gave me?  

I don't suppose I'll ever know.  This gull was a rare beauty, an experience I would love to repeat one day, and maybe I could learn from this experience and allow it to motivate me to spend more time looking and finding.  Maybe I could become a larophile, develop the birding superpower to recognise these mystifying birds.  I know I could, maybe, go and find my own in the local flocks, but I'm pretty sure I won't.  I just don't have that drive, that passion.  In my mind I know I'll regress back to my default on gulls: a desultory look, if they're close enough, but if they all fly off mid-count?  Well, it doesn't really matter.  

Though it really was a nice day for a white winger.