american herring gull in cheshire & wirral: new to britain

342 © British Birds 102 • June 2009 • 342–347

Two large, shallow lakes on the outskirts ofNorthwich, Cheshire & Wirral, knownlocally as Ashton’s and Neumann’s

Flashes, form the centrepiece of several hundredhectares of newly accessible nature reserves,regenerated community woodlands andmeadows, lying on the site of the former WittonLime Beds. These variably flooded, shallowlagoons and pools are well known not just fortheir birds, but also for the varied plant, insectand other animal communities that flourish in alime-rich environment. A good spread of raritieshave been found here over the last 30 years or so,most recently in 2008, when a pair of Black-winged Stilts Himantopus himantopus arrived inlate April and stayed to nest at Neumann’s Flash.

Ashton’s Flash came into being after ‘TheGreat Subsidence’ in 1880, following thecatastrophic flooding and dissolution ofunderlying salt-mine structures, just one ofmany dramatic events which presented the localindustry and communities with long-termdifficulties to overcome. Around 1950, largebund walls were constructed around thedangerous and derelict areas of the flashes tocontain the lime waste and slurry being pumpedin. By the mid 1980s, as the habitats improvedand the flashes attracted more birds, the areawas increasingly visited by birders. Anotherattraction was provided by the often-spectacular

hordes of winter gulls attracted to the nearbyWitton landfill, situated just a few hundredmetres to the west, and visible from the bund-wall viewpoints overlooking the flashes. It wason a cold winter’s day in February 1994 that,from one of these vantage points, overlookingthe scrubby willow Salix and birch Betula-fringed frozen pools of Ashton’s Flash, Idiscovered what was to become Britain’s firstAmerican Herring Gull Larus smithsonianus.

The discoveryOn 24th February 1994, having birded the areaearlier in the day, I returned home to work but,distracted by thoughts of so many gulls just afew miles away, the temptation to go back foranother look was too strong to resist. When Iarrived at around 16.00 hrs, large numbers ofgulls were already coming and going overhead. Itwas a day of cold, easterly winds and an overcastsky. Patches of snow and ice reflected the flatlight evenly from the ground, affording almostideal light conditions for gull-watching. With nodirect sunlight or harsh shadows to complicatethe usual challenges of distinguishing one greytone from another and of unravelling thecomplexities of immature gull plumagepatterns, I was hopeful that I might, at least,connect with a Glaucous L. hyperboreus orIceland Gull L. glaucoides, both of which were

American Herring Gull in Cheshire & Wirral:

new to BritainDavid Quinn

ABSTRACT The discovery of a first-winter American Herring Gull Larussmithsonianus in Cheshire & Wirral, in late February 1994, is described. At

that time, American Herring Gull was treated as the North American race ofHerring Gull L. argentatus, while the accepted Irish records formed part of thejoint British & Irish List. As a consequence, the significance of this record in a British context was not fully appreciated, and full details of the occurrence have not been published.With the subsequent separation of the British andIrish Lists, and the recent decision by BOURC to treat smithsonianus as a

full species, this now becomes the first British record.

being seen regularly atthat time.

After I had spentabout half an hourquickly ‘scoping’ asmany of the restinglarge gulls as possible,the sight of an unusualfirst-winter gull, fan-ning what appeared tobe an all-dark tail, hitme with a jolt of fearand excitement. Focus-ing on this bird intentlyas it moved amongother immature largegulls, I was struck byseveral features that dis-tinguished it from thecrowd of more familiarLesser Black-backed L.fuscus and HerringGulls L. argentatus. Veryquickly, the feelingdawned upon me that Ihad found an AmericanHerring Gull, which atthe time was treated as asubspecies of HerringGull.

I had been watchinggulls regularly at this sitefor about ten years, andhad seen AmericanHerring Gull previouslyin North America, insouthern Ontario andTexas. Through reading

American Herring Gull in Cheshire & Wirral: new to Britain

343British Birds 102 • June 2009 • 342–347

Figs. 1–3. First-winter American Herring Gull Larus smithsonianus, Ashton’s and Neumann’s Flashes,Cheshire & Wirral, February 1994; original field sketches and drawings derived from these and written notes.

Dav

id Q

uinn

Dav

id Q

uinn

Dav

id Q

uinn

Killian Mullarney’s paper describing thediscovery and characteristics of AmericanHerring Gulls at Cork City dump, Co. Cork(Mullarney 1990), and Peter Grant’s pioneeringbook on gull identification (Grant 1982), I wasalert to the possibility of finding and identifyingsmithsonianus in the UK. In the heat of themoment, however, it is surprising how priorknowledge can evaporate. I was alone, without acamera, and with a growing sense of panic,knowing that the bird could fly away at anymoment, I resorted to making notes andsketches. Frustratingly, due to the biting cold,and thanks to the fingerless glove on my righthand, there was no sensation of the pen in mynumbed fingers. Added to this, my eyes werewatering and my nose was leaking. Nothingunusual there for the winter gull-watcher but,due to the adrenalin rush, I had turned into ashaking fool, almost incapable of performing thesimple tasks of note-taking and making a fewsimple sketches. The resulting clumsy scribbleswere made on the brown paper inside the backcover of my small notebook – simply because itwas the page most quickly available and the moststable part of the book to use in the chillingeasterly breeze coming straight at me.

I took notes as best I could, and observed thebird for about 20 minutes before leaving,reluctantly, in the fading light to collect my wifefrom work and return home, where I madefurther drawings and notes from memory.

DescriptionThe following description is taken directly frommy notes and observations on the day, and fromsubsequent views of the bird in flight afterfinding it again over Witton landfill on 1stMarch.

Size and general appearanceLarger and bulkier than adjacent Lesser Black-backed Gulls, and estimated to be similar in sizeto, or a little smaller than, a nearby adultHerring Gull. The bird frequently adopted ahunched stance and, on a number of occasions,thrust its bill towards other gulls. At the time, itscumbersome and bossy demeanour, togetherwith the appearance of its head and bill, createdan impression of a first-year Glaucous Gull,rather than that of a Herring Gull.

At restThe head was noticeably paler than the neck and

underparts. There was some light-brownstreaking on the crown, and a dark area in frontof the eye, which created a slight frowningexpression. The forehead near to the bill baseand the area around the loral point were whiterthan the rest of the pale head.

The neck looked dark around the ear-covertsand down the neck sides towards the lower neckand upper-breast region. The rest of theunderparts were washed with sepia and becamefairly dark and uniform towards the belly.

The mantle and scapulars were fairly plain,with indistinct darker centres to the feathers,although the rear scapulars were noticeablydarker, with distinct narrow whitish tips. Thelesser, median and greater coverts were alsorather plain-looking, with few contrastingfeatures such as notches or barring; my views (ata distance of c. 100–125 m, through a BushnellSpacemaster telescope) revealed grey-browntones on the wing-coverts, with a generaldarkening towards the leading edge and bend ofthe folded wing, although this area of the wingwas partly overlapped by paler flank feathers.Appearing darkest at the base and blending topaler grey-brown distally, the greater covertscontrasted with the relatively paler lesser andmedian coverts.

The tertials, projecting primaries and tailwere very dark and gave the bird a noticeablydark rear end. The tertials appeared almostwholly blackish-brown, apart from slightly paleredges with a hint of a shallow-notched whitishedge towards the tip, and were reminiscent ofthose of first-winter Lesser Black-backed Gull.

The most significant feature was the dark tail,which initially attracted my attention when Isaw it fanned briefly from the rear, and also fromthe side. Even with a side view, an impression ofan all-dark tail prevailed, and I also noted somewhitish barring towards the base, which Iinitially attributed to overlapping undertail-coverts, just visible beneath the folded wings. Myfield sketch of the fanned tail shows a suggestionof limited white markings at the very base of theouter tail feather, yet I wrote of an all-darkimpression of the tail. Details of the uppertail-coverts were not noted, but this area did notregister as being contrastingly pale or whitish.

When the gull opened its wings during aninteraction with neighbouring birds, a palewindow on the inner primaries was noticeable,framed by the band of very dark secondaries andthe dark outer primaries.

344 British Birds 102 • June 2009 • 342–347


Bare partsThe bill was distinctly bi-coloured, being palepink at the base of both mandibles. The tip wasblack from around the distal edge of the nostril,down to the gonydeal angle, and back a little wayalong the cutting edges. The eyes were dark andthe legs a dull pink.

In flightWith scope views in good light and at a distanceof about 450 m, the contrast between the palehead and darker neck was striking. Comparisonwith a large number of other immature gullspresent revealed a clearly darker impression tothe underparts and underwing-coverts. Theuppertail-coverts and rump were not noticeablypaler than the back and, set against the entirelydark tail, gave a distinctive appearance whichenabled me to pick out the bird from the hordesof swirling gulls on at least half a dozenoccasions. The paler, inner-primary window wasagain clearly visible.

At this time, I also saw a second-calendar-year Lesser Black-backed Gull in flight whichhad an extensively dark or black tail, but therump and uppertail-coverts were strikinglywhite. The inner primaries lacked the palewindow shown by accompanying Herring Gulls.The bill appeared all-dark and the head, neckand underparts were white with some sparsedark markings.

I was pleased and relieved that, over the daysfollowing my initial sighting, my friend PaulKenyon (who submitted his own detailed fielddescription to BBRC) and Paul Holt both sawthe bird independently and supported itsidentity as an American Herring Gull.

In addition to our sightings at Northwich, agull fitting this description was discovered on6th March at Otterspool, some 38 km away onthe River Mersey, by gull enthusiasts MarkGarner and Gavin Thomas.

The taxonomic position of American HerringGullIn 2008, BOURC adopted the recommendationsof Sangster et al. (2007) and treated AmericanHerring Gull as a distinct polytypic species, withthe North American race L. s. smithsonianusbeing included on the British List (BOU 2008).Sangster et al. acknowledged that while manyindividuals can be identified, smithsonianus isnot fully diagnosable from Herring Gull inEurope on the basis of plumage alone (Adriaens

& Mactavish 2004; Lonergan & Mullarney2004), but is clearly differentiated on the basis ofmitochondrial DNA (mtDNA).

As the basis for this decision, the reportacknowledged phylogenetic evidence based onanalysis of mtDNA sequences, which indicatedthat the large white-headed gull complexconsists of two main clades (see Collinson et al.2008):

• The ‘Atlantic’ clade, comprising Yellow-legged Gull L. michahellis (including racesmichahellis and atlantis), Armenian Gull L.armenicus, Herring Gull (including racesargentatus and argenteus), Great Black-backed Gull L. marinus and Palearctic indi-viduals of Glaucous Gull.

• The ‘Aralo-Caspian’ clade, comprisingCaspian Gull L. cachinnans, Lesser Black-backed Gull (including races fuscus, inter-medius, graellsii, heuglini, barabensis andtaimyrensis) and Kelp Gull L. dominicanus.Within this clade an ‘Arctic/Pacific’ groupingwas identified within which they positionedAmerican Herring Gull (including racessmithsonianus, vegae and mongolicus), Slaty-backed Gull L. schistisagus, Iceland Gull,Glaucous-winged Gull L. glaucescens andNearctic individuals of Glaucous Gull.These phylogenetic relationships revealed

that the large white-headed gulls previouslyrecognised as L. (a.) vegae from northeasternSiberia, L. (a.) mongolicus from eastern Siberia,eastern Mongolia and northeastern China, andL. (a.) smithsonianus from North America fallwithin the Arctic/Pacific species group of the‘Aralo-Caspian’ clade, rather than the ‘Atlantic’clade, within which Herring Gull from theeastern North Atlantic resides. BOURC acceptedthat North American smithsonianus andEuropean argentatus are not sister taxa and aresufficiently differentiated to be treated asdistinct species. In addition, the reportrecommended that, given their lack ofdiagnostic differences, vegae and mongolicusshould remain conspecific with smithsonianus.

StatusIn the early 1990s, when American Herring Gullwas still treated as a race of (European) HerringGull, and when Britain and Ireland wereregarded as a single ornithological unit, thediscovery of this ‘First for Britain’ did notgenerate the same level of interest that it woulddo today. There had already been nine records



EDITORIAL COMMENT Bob McGowan, Chairman of BOURC, commented: ‘Following the first recordof American Herring Gull in Ireland, in Co. Cork in November–December 1986 (as a race of Larusargentatus), it was really just a matter of time before this Nearctic breeder would be noticed in Britain,and David Quinn’s persistence in scrutinising the flocks of gulls around the flashes and landfill atNorthwich certainly paid off.

‘The submitted description was of a high standard and fully met the criteria for smithsonianus. Asthere were no escape issues or other doubts on provenance, BOURC unanimously accepted the sightrecord as the first British occurrence (BOU 1996) and later accepted the Taxonomic Sub-committee’srecommendation to treat American Herring Gull as a separate, polytypic taxon (BOU 2008). Asidentification characters have become better understood, there has been an increase in the frequency ofrecords in Britain, and American Herring Gull appears to be a fairly regular vagrant – one that, likeother Nearctic gulls, is prone to influx years.’

Adam Rowlands, Chairman of BBRC, added: ‘This account captures the trials and tribulations ofwinter gull-watching perfectly. When the record was first published in a BBRC Report (Brit. Birds 89:504), the observers were congratulated by both BBRC and BOURC on their excellent, detailed reports.

(14 individuals) of smithsonianus in Irelandprior to the discovery of the Ashton’s Flash birdand many birders had already made thepilgrimage to Cork City dump and added thisrace of Herring Gull to their British & Irish List.At the time, probably few would have realisedthat the Ashton’s Flash bird was to become thefirst British record. Moreover, its position as‘just’ a race of Herring Gull probably did little toinspire interest, while there was relatively littleinformation available at that time about thedistinctive appearance of American HerringGull and its separation from its Europeancounterpart. Although Mullarney (1990)reviewed its status in Europe and discussed theidentification of several individuals discoveredin Ireland during the previous decade, AmericanHerring Gull identification was still poorlyunderstood except by a handful of gullenthusiasts.

Other occurrencesSince the early 1990s, several important papershave refined the criteria for identifying smithso-nianus in Europe, particularly in first-winterplumage. It is not intended to address these cri-teria here, but for anyone with an interest inAmerican Herring Gull identification, papers byAdriaens & Mactavish (2004), Lonergan &Mullarney (2004) and Adriaens et al. (2008)provide a fascinating insight into the problems.American Herring Gull has now occurred inBritain on several occasions, and up to the endof 2007 there had been a total of 16 acceptedrecords. It has been identified with increasingfrequency in recent years, with nine of the 16being found between 2002 and 2007, as field

characters have become better understood. Aswould be expected for a North Americanvagrant, the majority of records come from thesouthwest, including the Isles of Scilly (3),Cornwall (3), Devon (1) and Dorset (1), withthe remainder of English records coming fromGloucestershire (1), Cheshire & Wirral (1) andLancashire & North Merseyside (1). In Scot-land, it has been recorded in Argyll (1), High-land (1), Outer Hebrides (2) and offshore (seaarea Rockall) (1). In Ireland, since the first in1986, no fewer than 72 birds have been acceptedto the end of 2007 and it is now recordedalmost annually there.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Janet Moore of the Cheshire SaltMuseum for helping with my research into the localhistory of the salt industry.

References

Adriaens, P., & Mactavish, B. 2004. Identification of adultAmerican Herring Gull. Dutch Birding 26: 151–179.

—, Musse, M., & Winters, R. 2008. First-year Herring Gullsmimicking Smithsonian Gull. Dutch Birding 30: 1–6.

British Ornithologists’ Union (BOU). 1996. RecordsCommittee: 23rd Report. Ibis 139: 197–201.

— 2008. Records Committee: 36th Report. Ibis 150:218–220.

Collinson, J. M., Parkin, D.T., Knox,A. G., Sangster, G., &Svensson, L. 2008. Species boundaries in the Herringand Lesser Black-backed Gull complex. Brit. Birds 101:340–363.

Grant, P. J. 1982. Gulls: a guide to identification. Poyser,Calton.

Lonergan, P., & Mullarney, K. 2004. Identification ofAmerican Herring Gull in a western European context.Dutch Birding 26: 1–35.

Mullarney, K. 1990.American Herring Gulls in Ireland.Birding World 3: 96–100.

Sangster, G., Collinson, J. M., Knox,A. G., Parkin, D.T., &Svensson, L. 2007.Taxonomic recommendations forBritish birds: Fourth report. Ibis 149: 853–857.

346 British Birds 102 • June 2009 • 342–347


David Quinn, 24 Regent Street, Moulton, Northwich, Cheshire CW9 8NY



175 & 176. American Herring Gull Larus smithsonianus has been recorded almost annually in Ireland since the first in 1986, with over 70 accepted records to date.This first-winter was photographed in Nimmo’s Pier,

Co. Galway, in March 2008.

ww

w.ir

ishb

irdi

mag

es.c

omw

ww

.iris

hbir

dim

ages

.com

If anything, our knowledge of the pitfalls surrounding the identification of L. s. smithsonianus hasincreased since the mid 1990s, particularly involving superficially similar examples of ‘first-cycle’Herring Gulls (particularly of the form L. a. argentatus), and the fact that a proportion of L. s.smithsonianus exhibit features that would prevent a confident identification in a vagrant context inEurope. This has ensured that the acceptance criteria for this species remain stringent. Observersfortunate enough to find potential candidates in Britain are reminded to take notes containing as muchdetail as possible, accompanied by field sketches and preferably photographs to support the submission.At the time of writing, all the accepted British records refer to birds in their ‘first-cycle’ plumage, butthere are pending claims of other ages and we would encourage submissions of such records, eventhough the identification pitfalls tend to be more exaggerated with older birds.’

american herring gull in cheshire & wirral: new to britain

Documents