A Blustery Day at Shawell

On arrival this morning I noticed that something was missing - the gulls. The wind was howling and gulls love to fly when its windy. Eventually a swarm was visible above the distant tip.

On Thursday evening there was around 4000 Lesser Black-backed Gulls in the area, but the wind had obviously dispersed many of them today.

In the end I saw some good gulls, but the wind kept them moving about.

At the lagoons the gulls just couldn't settle, but it wasn't the fox family today it was the gusting wind. An adult female Caspian Gull came in with one of the flocks, but only stayed a short while. When she took off I noticed she was wearing a yellow colour-ring. Was this the small female Caspian Gull I saw last July? That one had a yellow colour-ring as well. I will get to read the inscription on the ring one of these days!

Adult Female Caspian Gull, Shawell A5 Lagoons, August 20th 2016

A second-summer Mediterranean Gull arrived at the lagoons and promptly flew off two minutes later. This is only my 16th sighting of this species at the site since I started my regular visits in 2012. It was almost adult like, but black marking were just visible on the growing primaries. It could be a first-summer moulting into second-winter plumage, but the black markings were very restricted on the almost all white primaries.

Mediterranean Gull, Shawell A5 Lagoons, August 20th 2106

Possibly eight different  juvenile/first-winter Yellow-legged Gulls put in appearances at the lagoons today, which is a good number. I'm sure I recognised some of them from Draycote Water.

Juvenile Yellow-legged Gull, Shawell A5 Lagoons, August 20th 2016