A Damp Day

22nd February - my first proper visit for a while.  A male Shelduck was on the spit and there were an assortment of gulls to look through, but not much else...and then it rained!

One of the juvenile gulls had found a fisherman's lure in the shape of a small fish and was tossing it around being chased by other gulls.  I was rather perturbed to see that it still had a triple hook attached at one end!  I saw the same lure a while later still being played with, but minus the hooks, so I hope it had dropped off rather than been swallowed.

I spent a little while watching a very white-headed and white-bellied first winter gull, hoping that it might be something interesting - it certainly stood out from the crowd.  However, it always looked like a Herring Gull and when it opened its wings, it displayed a classic Herring Gull pattern.  It is surprising how pale these first winters can get at this time of year.  I know some of the northern argentatus can be pale, but this did not look big enough for argentatus and was probably just a bleached argenteus.

Pale

Just a Herring Gull

There were also 2 colour-ringed Herring Gulls, a red-ringed 1w and an orange-ringed 2w, neither of which I could read.