The settled weather has meant that there's been little change as far as the resident birds are concerned with the usual hoards of winter ducks, a couple of dozen Lapwings and disappointingly few Golden Plover. Each evening we're getting good sized flocks of Starlings shooting overhead towards Otmoor, not something that I remember happening in previous years. The gull roost has been becoming more settled over the last couple of evenings and is now more or less staying put, which is good news. Whilst there was nothing out of the ordinary to report last evening, tonight came up trumps with a nice adult CASPIAN GULL in the roost together with a bonus adult YELLOW-LEGGED GULL. According to Ian Lewington (who knows all the county's cachinnans individually) this is a new bird that hasn't been seen before. It seems to be a good season for this species so far: as well as this being the Meadow's second bird in less than a week, quite a few have been seen already in the Farmoor roost and also at the Didcot tip. Long may it continue!
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| Unusually pale-eyed for a Caspian Gull. |
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| The all-important diagnostic P10 underside shot |
For those who just can't get enough hot Caspian action,
here's some extended video of it preening.
here's some extended video of it preening.
Just lovely! And the video is great, so nice to hear them as well.
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