Driving south from Llandudno, North Wales to Bath, Somerset for the Bath Bird Fair taking place on Sunday 18 July, news of a Franklin’s Gull in the midlands had me looking at the map. The Saturday traffic was light, thankfully, and I was making good time so surely a small side twitch would be worth a try? Luckily sat-nav could take me to Chasewater Reservoir in Staffordshire; the water lies just a few minutes off the toll road north of Birmingham. I arrived and immediately saw another birder heading off complete with scope along the bank of the reservoir. Must be the spot! I headed after the birder, it was amazing to see how low the water-level of the reservoir was, huge stony banks stretched all around the small patch of water in the centre. It was a long time since I had been here, way back in the 1980’s to see the UK’s first ever Lesser Scaup. How times have changed Lesser Scaup are now pretty regular fair for twitchers, but that first one still lives in the memory. Back to 2010 and I over took the other birding, exchanging a quick “All right?” as I hurried past. Ahead I could see gulls on the bank of the remaining water in the distance, but no other birders, weird, had the Franklin’s Gull moved on? Surely a good number of people would be here on a Saturday for such a rare bird? Putting away these negative thoughts I scanned the gulls from afar, but no sign of the Franklin’s, had it indeed gone? Then I noticed two more birders ahead off to the right, setting up their scopes and saw that the guy I had passed was making a “B” line for them. I walked over and expected a negative report on the gull. “Any sign?” I asked hopefully. The answer was a very pleasant surprise “Yes, it is on the bank with the big gulls” Great! I had scanned the flock of Black headed Gulls near the waters edge and not seen the bird; I had wrongly assumed it would be with the smaller gulls. The Franklin’s Gull was stood with Lesser black backed Gulls and Herring Gulls. It was a fine adult in near pristine breeding plumage, a cracker! The bird was preening and through the scopes great views were had in the afternoon sunshine. On a couple of occasions this rarity flew a few feet and showed the extensive white in the primaries, the hood was jet black with white “eye-lids” and blood red bill and legs, the mantle and wings were dark slate/blue grey.
It was only after watching the bird for some time I noticed a crowd of birders on the far side of the reservoir! Ah, that was where the birders were! The crowd were a long way away from the bird compared with our quartet and I was very lucky on two counts, first that sat-nav had sent me to the opposite side of Chasewater to most birders, and second that I had seen the birder heading off from where I parked, leading me to assume this was “the” spot to park!
At least two Yellow legged Gulls were amongst the other large gulls, Lapwings and Common Terns were around the waters edge.
Just as I turned to head back to the motorway the Franklin’s Gull flew the length of the reservoir giving great views of this distinctive rarity, job done!