I'm an idiot, please don't laugh...

...You learn something new every day apparently. Well yesterday I learnt a bigun. I have been living a lie. I have been seeing something that doesn't even exist, through my own ingorance. I have spent the last few days looking at Cabbage Whites, not even realising a Cabbage White isn't even a Butterfly!

It all started yesterday, sunbathing in the garden. My dad was hanging up some clothes to dry at the same time, and I spotted an Orange-Tip. Only the second I had seen this year, and my dad's first. We then had a conversation about Butterflies, and he mentioned having seen his first Large White of the year...

being the inquisitive type, and thinking it'd be good to tell them apart so I could mention it on this blog, I asked my dad 'how do you tell the difference between a Large White and a Cabbage White?'. And that, dear readers, is when I discovered the shocking truth. THERE IS NO CABBAGE WHITE!

As my Dad explained, 'Cabbage White' is the generic name for the two white species of Butterfly, the Large White and the Small White. To tell them apart, size is the easiest method, but Large White also has considerably more extensive black on the wingtips. It is fine to label them both as Cabbage Whites, but not technically correct.

Armed with this knowledge, and having to walk a dog, I spent the time wandering Seaford, trying to find white Butterflies. and I did. I saw two, one of which i got a good enough view of to clearly establish it was a Small White. The other one I saw I suspect may have been a Large White but I didn't get a good enough view to confirm it, so that one still goes down as a Cabbage.

I also learnt, yesterday, that sometimes the calls of phylloscopus warblers can be very unreliable. Walking along the estate above Cradle Hill, Seaford, I heard a phyllosc in one of the gardens.

Normally, it would be most likely to be a Chiffchaff. So when i heard it making a Willow Warbler's characteristic two-tone call I was quite excited. A Willow Warbler is a fairly good bird for an urban area. I was sure it was one, based on it's call.

I didn't have binoculars, so the best I could do was to peer up into the canopy and hope to get a glimpse of it. I caught sight of it flying from one tree to another. Then when it landed it started doing the characteristic 'tail-dipping' of a Chiffchaff. CRAP!

OK, it wasn't that big a deal, but it did at least teach me you can't always trust this tricky pair when confronted with only their call. The song it very distinctive, and after that behaviour is the next-best clue I find (Chiffchaff, as already mentioned, tail-pumps a lot, but Willow Warbler flicks its wings). In a 'classic' individual, plumage also helps (Willow Warbler being generally brighter than Chiffchaff), but there are a lot of intermediates that can't be indentified on plumage alone.

and just to make it that little bit harder, sometimes a bird will sing a bit of both songs, see http://gwentbirding.blogspot.com/2011/04/theyre-everywhere.html for an example. Whether these are hybrids or confused individuals is often anybody's guess, but it seems that Willow Warbler may sing a 'mixed' song more often than Chiffchaff. I myself have a first-hand as a bird singing a hybrid song (it was a Willow Warbler on plumage/behaviour though) was seen at Pulborough Brooks RSPB for two springs running, and Dad and I managed to bump into it both years. It was a bit of a mind-fuck at first!

and if you want to check their calls and songs, there are links here (WilWa), and here (Chiffy).

But other than that, not a lot to report of late. However, Honey-bees appear to be out in force, and I have also seen a lot of Red-rumped Bumble-Bees in the last few days. Our pond is now crawling with little Toad Tadpoles, and there are up to four Slow Worms at any one time in the garden. We also have a few pairs of House Sparrow that regularly come into the garden getting food for their young, but asides from then and a few Blue Tits and Blackbirds, the garden has seemed very birdless recently. However, several Chiffchaffs have taken up residence around Seaford, and a migrant Buzzard, with the inevitable accompanying gulls (click here for my heartfelt tribute to the bastards), flew strongly north yesterday morning.

two of the Slow Worms in the garden

female House Sparrow, coming in to collect food for her brood

an 'arty' portrait of a Tulip. note I said 'arty', not arty.

I'm in the middle of a seabird colony...

...as are probably the large majority of people reading this blog. You might not have realised it yet though.

...Before saying anything on this matter, I'll just state the few little things I saw today. After singing Chiffchaffs on the 5th, I topped that with a Willow Warbler today. Otherwise very few birds are around at the moment. But I saw a few more Cabbage Whites today, along with my first Orange-tip of the year. On the night of the 5th, my first Pipistrelle Bats in Seaford being nice to see.

I'm talking, of course, about the breeding colonies of gulls that must now occur in almost every town in Britain. Certainly Herring Gulls breed in every coastal town in Sussex.

It is very easy to write these birds off as just being 'flying rats'. But, don't forget, they are still wild birds. In fact, along with crows, it's probably fair to say Herring Gulls (and other gulls in some areas) must be one of the most adaptable species in our country. To adapt to an environment in such a short period of time (in most cases less than 100 years) is a remarkable achievement.

There are a lot of people who say, they're only gulls, and barely worth a second glance. I used to be like this. The only time I would notice a gull was when it took a shit on me.

But take a look at them, and they are, in fact, a fully-functioning seabird colony. Of all the birds we see from day-to-day, I would argue urban gulls are one of the easiest to study the behaviour of. We can see the hierarchy in their ranks in winter, when they flock together in areas like school-playing fields (like mine). The adults tend to be dominant as you'd expect. The juveniles squabble over all the scraps of crap left outside, but all part if an adult swoops in.

Come spring, they are ubuquitous nesters. You can see pairs on roofs all over my hometown of Seaford. They often embark on fierce territorial battles (I have seen a bird drown another on a local pond once before!), and once they have young they will mob anything that gets too near. Even a human in a garden is seen as a threat to them. For some this is a nuisance, but I personally love seeing wild birds in their element like this. And if they crap on the guy next door who has probably given me lung cancer with all his filthy second-hand smoke, I won't complain...

In the evening, they all take to the air, calling and circling the houses below. If you stop imagining yourself in the middle of a town, close your eyes and picture youself on some far-flung clifftop, it's actually very atmospheric.

They are also an alarm system for birdwatchers. Me and Dad have seen HONEY BUZZARD, RED KITE and MARSH HARRIER flying over our garden in the past, thanks to the local gulls. I'm sure every birdwatcher has their own story to tell about how gulls helped them to see a raptor travelling over their garden.

Perhaps my favourite story involving the local gulls was actually an attempt to get rid of them, about this time last year. The school, fed up all the gulls, called in a falconer. They must have thought a Harris's Hawk would scare all them off. That was rather stupid. I'd have thought it doesn't take too much intellect to work out the result of pitching one domesticated hawk against the 50+ gulls that hang around our school. and several hundred others from the surrounding area. The hawk sat in a tree, feeling sorry for itself and trying to avoid several hundred dive-bombing gulls. The school scratched their heads and wondered what the fuck was going on...

so there you have it, gulls. They are a reminder of the rugged seaside their ancestors inhabited. They are a detection device for birds of prey. and they really piss off the governers of my school! Which is why I love them!