Thursday 20th December

Yesterday in miserable rainy conditions there was unfortunately no sign of the Iceland gull despite a few birders turning out to look for it. In fact visibility was so bad that I couldn't really make out much at all.

Today the floods were up again on the back of yesterday's rain so it was back to the west bank of the river for viewing. It was remarkably mild and there was a good gull roost to sift through. Highlight of the evening was a couple of MEDITERRANEAN GULLS, one adult and one first winter, as well as at least 20 common gulls. On the duck front there was a SHELDUCK on the floods, the first for quite a while this year and at least 6 GOOSANDER came in to roost as well. The golden plover flock was larger, being about 500 birds though I couldn't spot any other waders this evening apart from the usual lapwings. I did have a dark-mantled, streaky-headed gull in the roost which had me wondering about Azorean Yellow-legged Gull but after reviewing the video (which is too poor for public viewing) I think it's probably just a streaky argentatus.



Some record shot video of the two Med. gulls this evening

No comments:

Post a Comment