Chalkwell Stranded feathers (cont.)

September 3 and 4 2006. Chalkwell beach was revisited around noon on both these days, with predicted tides at 1.6 m above mean sea level forming a strandline of eelgrass (Zostera), brown algae and gull feather on the first morning and cut into a small cliff on the second morning. There was a southwest gale on September 2 and 3 but it was calm at the times of the high tides. The occurrence of eelgrass was a new feature, not very evident earlier in the year and doubtless resulting from the wind acting on the lower intertidal zone, about 2 km south-west of Chalkwell, where this marine grass grows in summer.

On September 3 a couple of hundred metres of the strandline showed three large bird corpses, as well as the separated barred and gull feathers seen previously. A large gull with intact head had stranded against the west side of a breakwater and two headless birds were on the open strandline further to the east. The large gull probably corresponded to the feathers of the Lesser Black-Backed Gull now added to the loose assemblage and one of the corpses was a white smaller gull represented by loose Black-Headed Gull feathers seen previously. Both these corpses had gone the next day but the third one remained having merely been displaced down the cliff of grass and sand cut by the later tide and wind. During this displacement one of the wings had opened but considerable force was required to pull out one of the primary feather of around 320 mm when standing on the corpse. This feather was dark grey with a white rhachis. This feather was not greatly different to those found loose and attributed to the wings of Lesser Black-Backed Gulls, and the smaller transverse banded brest and tail feathers match the loose banded feathers found on August 22 and later. The secondary wing feathers were paler brown, with a white tip to the more blunt tip to the vane. Due to the ongoing bird influenza cares I did not make a more careful study of the corpse and these smaller feathers but judging from the size of the largest wing feathers it is more likely to be a Peregrine Falcon than a Cuckoo, and was clearly different from the colour pattern of a Curlew. However, a Curlew option for the loose banded feathers seen on the beach was reinforced by a collection of probable primary wing feather among the gull and banded feathers on September 4. This feather showed 14 brown triangular bars on the vane and an overall length of 231 mm. Probably it is a mistake to regard the new corpse with small banded feathers on the body as the only or even the main species yielding the small Curlew-like feathers on the strandline.



Black-Headed Gull