Thursday 17 January 2013

Horsehay - 2w yellow legged Gull

Another 'busy' session at Horsehay and sadly apart from 2 Yellow-legged Gulls the sheer numbers were mesmerising and didn't produce a 'special' one! A distant adult was joined by this 2nd Winter bird......



Hopping onto the ice....



There must have been well  in excess of 1,000 Lesser Black-backs at one stage with quite a few ringed birds amongst them. Most were red letters on blue (which were ringed at Gloucester landfill site) - thanks Roger! Here's just two of them..... Welcome 'AHV'


And HVU...


I remember having a (nearly) heated discussion with a "photographer" (well, he was carrying a long lens!) bemoaning the hassle ringed birds caused him as he then had to airbrush them away! What utter rubbish..... rings are there for a reason and give a amazing insight into the travels of birds :-)

HVU.... was ringed at Gloucester landfill site in Jan 2010, it was then seen in Westkapelle (Netherlands) on Nov 1st that year, returning to Throckmorton (Worcs) on 11th Dec.

2011 delivered  two sightings in Gloucs (11th Feb and 28th Jul). On Feb 2nd 2012 it was at Priorslee lake (Roger Clay) and then the most recent sighting was here..... today,  Jan 17th 2013.

Fascinating stuff, they sure get around and that's a fact.....