A pager message announcing a probable Glaucous-winged Gull in Teesside on New Year’s Day was hardly the sort to send shockwaves through the birding community. “Probable” and “large white-winged gull” are not words that sit comfortably together, and with Glaucous-winged Gull’s notorious reputation for hybridisation in North America, it felt more like a curiosity than a must-see mega.
Then things began to shift.
An adult photographed on the main pool the following day was relocated late afternoon in a ploughed field by the A1185. As images circulated that evening, phones buzzed with speculation. Was it genuine? Was it just another hybrid? Should we go?
In the end, common sense, or so we thought, prevailed. Phil Woollen and I adhered to the original plan to visit Marbury Country Park to see the Hawfinch that Enid Murphy had recently found. I still needed it as a long-overdue patch tick.
We were watching the Hawfinch at Marbury when the pager erupted with that unmistakable second bleep, the kind that jolts you upright in your seat.
The gull had been accepted as a definite Glaucous-winged Gull. That changed everything. Glaucous-winged Gull is a North Pacific species, breeding from Washington State north through British Columbia and Alaska and west to eastern Siberia, largely coastal, largely sedentary and an extreme rarity in Europe. Britain has only recorded a tiny handful, many of which are clouded by hybrid origin. A confirmed adult was simply unmissable.
Within seconds, Pete Antrobus (“Pod”) was on the phone. The Hawfinch was reduced to a token glance, and we piled into Pod’s car, heading north with the urgency only a newly-upgraded mega can inspire.
The ploughed field was our first port of call, but it was soon clear the bird had moved. A wider search led us to Cowpen Bewley Marsh, where sizeable numbers of large gulls were loafing and bathing. Given the site’s track record for attracting wandering Larids, it felt right, but still the bird refused to show.
The atmosphere was tense. Several birders present had suffered the infamous dip on the Ferryside/Towy Estuary third-winter Glaucous-winged Gull back in March 2007, and no one wanted history to repeat itself.
Then came the breakthrough.
Young Josh Jones picked up a pale, bulky-headed gull tucked into a dip in the marsh. As nearby birds flushed, the mystery bird stepped into full view, broad-winged, pale and powerfully built. Even at a distance, it looked classic. To my eyes, it was straight out of Olsen & Larsson’s Gulls: the soft pearly-grey mantle flowing seamlessly into primaries devoid of black, the subtle smoky hood extending down the sides of the breast yet leaving a striking white ‘finger’ separating it from the mantle. Every feature aligned perfectly. In that moment, the identification felt watertight. Teesside had landed a genuine adult Glaucous-winged Gull.
After hours of doubt and a frantic dash across counties, one of Britain’s rarest gulls was finally in the bag, a Pacific wanderer improbably marooned on a northeast marsh.
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