The Bagsy Blog: Jonathan Livingstone Seagull

Thursday, 27 February 2020

Jonathan Livingstone Seagull - Richard Bach (Part I)

Surely trying to name your favourite Bird Species in the World is an

impossibility as today it might be the Robin and next an Andalusian Hemipode

(where the hell did that come from??)

Even then if you whittled it down to favourite Family Groups there is contention, even among scientists, most considering there are somewhere between 9 and 10,000 Species worldwide?

However, all that aside like many other people the Gulls certainly do something for me.

It was back as far as 17/03/1988 that, along with our dear friend Hugo Wood-Homer, we were stood on the banks of the River Plym estuary in Devon wallowing in the delights of a ‘winter plumage’ Ross’s Gull. It was no more than a casual remark from myself to Hugo, “that’s this was the 35^th species of Gull I had seen in the world” that he replied, “with your wander lust Bagsy it wouldn’t be impossible to see all 54 species”. It seemed like a gauntlet, enough of a spur to set me about trying to achieve just such a mammoth task! It was 24½years later, on the 22/09/2012 to be precise, that the now ambition was finally fulfilled. Among that host there were but 3 species which were not committed to ‘celluloid’, or more correctly the modern equivalent, and with the final 3 taking me on a couple of mega wild goose chases! Species 32 and 33 were both confined to the America's and both having come tantalisingly close before the deeds were done and combining the 2 taking me on what is still my longest Twitch ever. However, there was a little more to it than that as there were also 3 US States that had not been visited with 2 being side by side and the other said to be the most remote populated Island Group in the world. Of these we would request the reader to re-visit the post of 15/02/2020 (If I Counld Turn Back Time - Cher) for the first which was Honalulu Hawaii this in itself a return journey, Weymouth to Weymouth of some 11,500 miles.

Our first encounter with the third from last Gull may have come some years before when travelling in the region of California and research showing that it was common and plentiful at the Salton Sea not many miles away. However, further adivce pointed to the area being far from welcoming so on the strength of that alone the project was abandoned.

This time the destination would be Baja Califoria, Mexico where, in the first instance, a full day and night was spent to the tune of a few

WESTERN GULLS

(close)

and loads of

SNOWY EGRETS

(time to move on to the next village south)

where searching from noon until dark didn't even show a single

Gull

let alone the object of desire.
Onward then to

and having suggested a possible 3 nights to the landlady there was a massive disappointment for her to come as stepping onto the beach at first light there it stood, bold as brass a pristine