Iceland Gull

Well this is uncanny!

Last week I blogged about how the large numbers of wildfowl in the valley annoyingly contained only the usual Axe species, then the next morning I went out and there were three Pintail. Last night I blogged about how I was really expecting a scarce gull yesterday afternoon considering the gulls numbers and weather conditions but failed, and at 08:30 off Seaton Hole this morning...

A flipping Iceland Gull! Apologies for the photo, I stupidly left my trusty Nikon P900 in my car so had to resort to my mobile phone camera. The light was truly awful as well, I first spotted it as it drifted out of the line of sunlight, albeit not all that far out, and it didn't move far from that spot...

Well until it took flight about two minutes later. It flew really close in west with three other gulls towards Beer Beach, but I couldn't see it there half an hour later.

Thanks to the light, and the fact it took me ages to line my phone camera up with my scope and the bird to get these few record shots (why is that SO hard!??), I didn't really obtain the best view of it, but I saw nothing to suggest it was anything other than a juvenile/first-winter bird...

Hopefully it hangs around for others to see, and I wouldn't mind a better look myself. But still, I'm well chuffed with it, and what a cracking PWC2017 year tick!