Really should apologies for leaving you so long with that
last post about Herring Gull races. It really was quite cruel. My offering this
time is again sadly gulls but more interesting ones you’ll be pleased to hear!
Since well before Christmas, an adult Glaucous Gull has been
wandering up and down Chesil beach and has completely ignored Radipole until
now! I’d never seen a Glauc at Radipole and it’s been on my most wanted list
for a few years so imagine how pleased I was a few days ago to look out of the
window and see this beauty flopping around!
And obviously it’s on my Radipole patch list which I really
should add up...
The storms which have been giving people plenty to whinge about
(completely understandable in some cases) has been sending a few interesting
gulls into Radipole. Little Gull tally for the year it getting somewhere near
the staggering figure of three of four and Kittiwake is probably approaching
half a dozen! This poor fella came in a few days ago and even came to bread
though just once when I didn't have the camera to hand!
Will finish up with this ‘interesting’ bird. I’m very sorry
but it’s gull races again! This Common Gull really stood out from the crowd. Took
a few pictures and like most things, I forgot about it. This morning I noticed the
pics on the SD card and had a closer look. I started wondering whether this
bird could be of the race heinei which is from Russia I think. It’s a very
dark, slightly larger bird and the tail pattern I thought was interesting. In fact
I first clocked this bird in flight due to it’s speckled tail pattern. Usually
Common Gulls have very white tails with the black band. Some do have spotting
but this bird certainly had more than normal. Don’t know whether this race is
ID’able in 1st winter plumage and don’t even know what I’d look for
really but this bird looked quite different from the norm. Comments would be appreciated
and apologies for the dodgy pics!
