Sunday 24 August 2014

Colour Rings

Around Galloways this morning 6 Whinchats, 9 Wheatears, 30+ Yellow Wagtails, 5 Willow Warblers, 4 Stonechats, numerous Common Whitethroats, 2 Sparrowhawks and 2 Common Buzzards.
I stopped off at Cockles Bridge to watch a Hobby chasing the myriads of Hirundines that were mostly very high, whilst doing so I picked up a Honey Buzzard that was even higher heading towards Lade and France no doubt.
At the ARC from Hanson and The Screen, 2 Spotted Redshanks, 11 Black-tailed Godwits, a Knot, a Redshank, 6 Dunlin, 12 Golden Plover, 5 Common Snipe and a Garganey among c200 Lapwing.
I spent the afternoon on the beach in the brilliant company of Mick, Richard, Mark, David and Andy watching, learning and photographing the Gulls that had been lured by numerous loaves of bread and a mixture of fish heads and shellfish. At least 4 Yellow-legged Gulls came in to feed. A 1w Caspian Gull tricked us all by coming onto the beach just to far for good photograhs, thinking it would come much closer attracted by all the food we held back, only to watch it promptly fly off out to sea and not return. A good selection of colour ringed Gulls came in to keep me happy. In the best part of 4 hours on the beach virtually nothing moved off shore. The Red-throated Diver that has been present for several weeks swam by, 2 1w Mediterranean Gulls flew west and 2+ Arctic Skuas were seen beating up the Terns.     
Juvenile Yellow-legged Gull

Gull melee!

5AA1 Great Black Backed Gull

JP281 Great black Backed Gull

532 Herring Gull

H8FT Herring Gull

R7HT Herring Gull

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