Kev's Christmas Bird Count: Day Two - gull frightlines (and yet more background policies)

Threw back the curtains and the forecast fog had failed to materialise. Morning spent checking off-path nooks and crannies for edge of the marsh stuff. The sort of spot you'd rush by on a normal day, say, the official dog walking field on the edge of the Country Park, full of noise and smells and potentially dangerous allergy reactants, but which also has a straggly patch of alders (Siskin; 2).

Guilt sets in. You're not really counting much now, and could you be missing out on a bigger count back on the seawall? Surely that's where you should be? And think of the Knot. They're only just starting to move into the western basin and that covering tide is due. Might be the only chance of a two-figure, three figure count on Monday's big count..

CBC thinking is a little different to Bird Race thinking. Back to the wall, Lesser Redpoll can wait a bit, that mist could roll in any minute..

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Should we be more like this- our chums over the pond use 'policies' rather than having rules. Knowing how much we Brits hate rules (and codes) perhaps a good policy would be to use policies next time?

Anyhoo, after yesterday's viewing problems, what can you do on a CBC to make up for thick fog?

The policy on using attractant noises. As CBC is about numbers in the non-breeding season, playback and attractant noises (pishing and squeaking) are allowed "where allowed by law". The use of playback on a CBC should be very judicious, never in a way that could affect the birds' behaviour in a significant way.

The policy on trail cams, remote/unmanned audio recorders, and live stream feeder cameras. Not allowed. Species detected by trail cam photos or other remote sensing can be listed as “cw” (count week) species if they were recorded in count week.  But they cannot be included on the Census Day itself.

(I'm so glad we didn't start this 120 years ago. We'd have Blightymas bird Count purists insisting no Swaro' scopes, just 2x magnification Opera glasses.. No idea what they think of thermal imaging cameras either.)

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The afternoon, after checking through the waders on the uncovering, was spent looking through the loafing gulls. For the Count Day, planning on picking up numbers in the hour around sunset as, even if I end up deep in the quarry, the southern shore is peppered with gull flightlines as thousands return to roost after a day feeding inland to the Downs.

Today the mist was coming in. Bugger, bugger, bugger. Sure, that would mean some of the gulls coming back really low, often eye level along the likes of the narrow Otterham creek, but the spectacle won't happen, the numbers will be missed.

Anyone who has done a BTO winter gull survey knows the whole event is like a Star Wars dogfight. "They're coming in too fast.. there's too many of them.. lookout! they're behind you.. arrrgh" that the official count instructions move you into the realm of estimates. And, to many, that's even scarier.

Not just size and scale. We get worried about the fellow traveller. The oddity wrapped up in the mass. I think of it in a way that dismisses that traveller completely. I use a wader analogy when trying to explain to potential counters they really only need to concentrate on the common stuff. A WeBS count isn't a bird race. In a bird race, the rare wader scores exactly the same as the thousands of Dunlin they're wrapped in. A WeBS count, a gull survey, a CBC, they have a more formal purpose attached. WeBS provides the evidence as to whether we're meeting our international commitments or not. Are we looking after the officially recognised internationally important numbers we have here. Yet we get hung up on whether there's one Great Knot in the 5,000 not-so-great Knots and what if we miss it..

It really doesn't matter if you miss the Great Knot.

(Heresy!!)

The important result is a number of the Knot. Just like you don't get hung up on if it's 4,975 or 5,025, at this scale an estimate is fine, miscounting/misidentifying that Great in the sum of all things doesn't matter. It's the trend in overall numbers for the important species we're after.

You can get hung up on rares any other day. On this day, their rarity value has fallen.

Often when trying to sell surveys to people you'll find a 'But what if I can't identify an X among the flocks' is their way of saying 'not for me', but just now and then you'll pick up it's a buy-in, an objection that can be overcome. Reassurance is what's needed.

No-one comes into this world kicking and screaming with a Collins field guide in hand and an inbuilt knowledge of greater coverts, tertial lengths and toe palmations,

So, gull flightlines. Get those estimations. You will miss a handful of Med gulls among the Black-heads, but the percentage scale makes it a minimal loss. Trust me, those few Meds won't make up for the Black-heads coming in too high. The trend, the estimate, are important today. You can go back to worrying about the lone Bonaparte's tomorrow. Then his rarity value will be on the rise.

Of course, human nature being what it is, you're going to want one Med gull at least. Here on the Medway most will say December Meds are rare. Well, they're certainly inland feeding for much of the time birders are about, but come the last hour of the day early loafing Black-heads start to assemble along the shore. Not many of us stop to scan through them but, when you do, you'll find a small number of Meds. Today the ratio of BHs to MUs in the loafers during that last hour was about 180 to one, so you do have to work at them. You can get a handful if you try, and from now on through into spring, that number will slowly grow.

How many do you miss on the flightlines? Who knows? But there'll be small numbers from inland, and a slightly larger number from Sheppey's north shore that roost here. But the point of the winter gull survey is the scale of those large numbers.

This is what I'm liking about feel of the CBC. A large part of it is designed to be fun. The game is there to be played, with the win-win bonus of useable data. Why so very many do play CBC, year after year I guess - "Surveys! But now with extra added fun!!"

I was cold, I was damp, I was stuck with limited visibility for the last hour of the day. The stats would say I'd had nearly a dozen Meds. But I'd actually had was fun.

Tomorrow? Day three of Count Week, the day before Count Day. I think I'll call it Count Day Eve. The excitement is building more I had imagined..

My other team member, 'Winter George'. Always joins me for a seawatch off Horrid Hill.