Rose-coloured Starling!!! and Yellow-legged Gull

Well that was a bit of a shock to the system!  I had taken about four steps from my front garden on my walk to work this morning when my brain couldn't quite work out with a naked eye view what the strangely pale lump was on a neighbours roof...

Thankfully my binoculars were around my neck.... it was a bloody juv/first-winter Rose-coloured Starling!  All on its tod, just a Wood Pigeon perched on the other end of the roof.

After about ten seconds of excellent front and then back views, and of course just as I was lowering my rucksack off my back to retrieve my camera, it dropped off the back side of the roof and disappeared from view, and I had no way of knowing how far it went!  I sent messages out and spent the next hour walking around the estate, soon joined by a few of the local birders.  Things were not looking good, but then at 08:50 it flew low over mine and Clive's head trailing a Common Starling, looking just as ridiculously pale as it did when it was sat on the roof.  

Not sure how much more time was given to it by other birders after my departure, and I was at work for the rest of the day, but it wasn't reported again until almost 4pm when Phil A and Tim C had on Colyford Common, which is where it then roosted with around 2,000 Starling at 5pm.  I do hope it remains in the area and settles as I would love to get a photo or two of it myself.  I have got Jess and Harry on high alert as we have fat balls hanging in our front garden -  it was so close to be added to my house list but hopefully there is still chance!

This is our first Rose-coloured Starling on patch since the pair of stunning adults in Eyewell Green in June 2020, before that you'd have to go back to June 2012 when we all missed an adult that spent a few days in Colyford.  I think this is the first juvenile/first-winter ever recorded here, which is quite surprising given the large autumn Starling flocks we get on the marshes.

Late this afternoon, a large immature gull had me scratching my head for a bit on the lower Axe Estuary, until it flashed its upperwing which looked classic Yellow-legged Gull... and that's because it was a Yellow-legged Gull!  

Previously all the 2cy Yellow-legged Gulls I have seen here during the last few months of the year have been clear cut second-winters, but this bird was still in its moult from first-summer plumage to second-winter plumage, hence why it didn't look as clean as your regular second-winters.  Plumage aside, size and structure spot on as it was a big meaty bird..

All that grey coming through, clearly darker than the Herring Gulls. Very pale headed although still retaining a slight dark eye smudge

Huge bird!  Big square head, thick bill, long legs - a bit of a chunk really!

Almost a Casp-like border between pale head and nape. Dusky eye smudge and head shape very un-Casp-like though!

Typical immature Yellow-legged Gull tail pattern with thick black tail band

All in all, a bloody good day!