Over the last few days I have noticed a high proportion of Black-backed Gulls on the river - this is always an obvious sign that there's some decent gull passage going on. There wasn't anything of note amonsgt them yesterday, but a look along the Estuary late morning today revealed this amongst the 92 Lesser Black-backed Gulls...
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| Yellow-legged Gull |
A cracking near-adult Yellow-legged Gull! I say near-adult due to its relative dullish bill and legs, and streaking around the eye - I may be wrong though!
The middle photo shows a nice comparison of mantle colours, with Lesser Black-backed Gull at the back, Yellow-legged Gull in the middle and argenteus Herring Gull at the front. This photos also shows the typical square-headed appearance of Yellow-legged Gull. The lower photo (although slightly fuzzy) shows just how long-winged it looked in the field.
The count of Lesser Black-backed Gulls was notable in itself really, with all ages and many different mantle colours on show. Although I counted 92, in reality today well over a hundred I'm sure would have visited the Estuary. There were lots of Great Black-backs too, but I didn't count these (at a guess c160).
Wader wise, both the Bar-tailed Godwit and Greenshank were still on the river, with the two two's still opposite Axmouth FC (two Wood Sands and two Ruff).
Interesting Steve - I had 60+ LBBG on the Otter scrapes yesterday which is notable for here. Also at least 2 colour-ringed birds - one ringed in Guernsey it seems.
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