I HATE not having a camera that works properly!!! ARGGGGHHHHHH!!!
This morning the Axe Estuary Ringing Group had an outing on Colyford Common. A nice selection of ducks first thing included three Mallard and four smart Teal - gorgeous ducks - even the ladies! For the 'macro' to work on my camera I need to zoom in a little bit - just by one notch. BUT cuz that's the button that is buggered, I couldn't take a single in focus photo of any of the birds! PANTS!
An obvious highlight seen during the ringing session was an Otter feeding in the northern corner of Blackhole Marsh - it gave cracking views! A couple of Water Pipits and four Green Sands also livened things up a little. It was nice to see some new faces helping us out today.
I was out again just after 14:00, a sweep of the estuary revealed just two adult Med Gulls. Afterwards a look at the sea gave eight Red-throated Divers, ten Great Crested Grebes, one Eider, six Common Scoters (four lovely drakes) and good numbers of Razorbills. At Beer a lone Black Redstart remains on the beach.
I returned home and after a couple of hours of odd jobs, went out for one last look.... was well worth it :-)
At 16:50, what looked like a small Polar Bear in with the gulls north of Coronation Corner turned out to be a second-winter Iceland Gull! It really was WHITE WHITE, which had me worried for a sec as albino/leucistic this or that entered my head... but when it came out of the water and started wandering about all doubts disappeared, my first Axe second-winter Iceland was waving at me - COOOOOOL! I wonder if it is one of last winters first-winters?
Ian Mc was the only one able to respond to my texts, he joined me for five minutes before we both had to leave. As my camera is busted (in case you didn't know!?) I didn't even bother trying to get a pici of it in the gloom, so instead went for a photo of the estuary north of Coronation Corner at 17:10 tonight...
No that's not a small Sun on the mud, but the Iceland Gull!
Another notable one just before I turned up the Ike was this third-winter argentatus Herring Gull. Amazingly this photo actually turned out only slightly worse than okay...
My first of this winter on patch; for most I know this is a YAWN.... but not for me :-)
This morning the Axe Estuary Ringing Group had an outing on Colyford Common. A nice selection of ducks first thing included three Mallard and four smart Teal - gorgeous ducks - even the ladies! For the 'macro' to work on my camera I need to zoom in a little bit - just by one notch. BUT cuz that's the button that is buggered, I couldn't take a single in focus photo of any of the birds! PANTS!
An obvious highlight seen during the ringing session was an Otter feeding in the northern corner of Blackhole Marsh - it gave cracking views! A couple of Water Pipits and four Green Sands also livened things up a little. It was nice to see some new faces helping us out today.
I was out again just after 14:00, a sweep of the estuary revealed just two adult Med Gulls. Afterwards a look at the sea gave eight Red-throated Divers, ten Great Crested Grebes, one Eider, six Common Scoters (four lovely drakes) and good numbers of Razorbills. At Beer a lone Black Redstart remains on the beach.
I returned home and after a couple of hours of odd jobs, went out for one last look.... was well worth it :-)
At 16:50, what looked like a small Polar Bear in with the gulls north of Coronation Corner turned out to be a second-winter Iceland Gull! It really was WHITE WHITE, which had me worried for a sec as albino/leucistic this or that entered my head... but when it came out of the water and started wandering about all doubts disappeared, my first Axe second-winter Iceland was waving at me - COOOOOOL! I wonder if it is one of last winters first-winters?
Ian Mc was the only one able to respond to my texts, he joined me for five minutes before we both had to leave. As my camera is busted (in case you didn't know!?) I didn't even bother trying to get a pici of it in the gloom, so instead went for a photo of the estuary north of Coronation Corner at 17:10 tonight...
No that's not a small Sun on the mud, but the Iceland Gull!Another notable one just before I turned up the Ike was this third-winter argentatus Herring Gull. Amazingly this photo actually turned out only slightly worse than okay...
My first of this winter on patch; for most I know this is a YAWN.... but not for me :-)Back to work tomorrow, something to look forward too........NOT!
Cheers for text, as always!
ReplyDeleteIke??!!!!!!!! Where's the dignity?! ;o)