Sunday 24 March 2013

Gull-tastic!

The highlight of today was seeing 10 species of gull (which included 3 Glaucous Gulls) at Sea Palling. There was a load of Razor Clams washed up during the week by the strong easterly winds and now thousands of gulls have arrived in the area to join in on the shellfish feast.
The rough totals were:
Glaucous Gull - 3 (all 1st winters, but there was also a 3rd-winter in the area that I didn't see).
Yellow-legged Gull - 7
Little Gull - 9
Mediterranean Gull - 6
Kittiwake - 10
Common Gull - 1000+
Black-headed Gull - 1000+
Herring Gull - 500
Lesser Black-backed Gull - 300
Great Black-backed Gull - 100

2nd-winter Yellow-legged Gull

Adult Yellow-legged Gull (top), adult Lesser Black-backed Gull (middle), 1st-winter Herring Gull (lower-right) and 2nd-winter Common Gull (lower-left)

Oiled Adult Common Gull

Juvenile Herring Gull

Adult winter Little Gull

Juvenile Kittiwake

Adult Kittiwake (left), adult summer Mediterranean Gull (centre) and adult summer Black-headed Gull.

Adult Common Gulls

1st winter Glaucous Gull

1st winter Glaucous Gull

1st winter Glaucous Gull

1st winter Glaucous Gull

1st winter Glaucous Gull

1st winter Glaucous Gull

1st winter Glaucous Gull

1st winter Glaucous Gull

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1st winter Glaucous Gull

Gull watching

Some of the gulls.
Also on the beach were a few waders, including Sanderling and about 6 Purple Sandpipers.

Purple Sandpiper

On the way out to the coast I found 7 Cranes just north-west of Acle bridge feeding near the road. Here's some photos and a video of them.



1 comment:

Tim Allwood said...

Hi there

the 2cy gull on the water above is different from the one this evening but it may have been the more distant one we saw in the field. It has that pale area around the snout and is a bird I saw a few days ago. The bird late this afternoon was much paler, with a nick/prominent uneveness in the right secondaries and doing its regular patrol along the wall, so it does look to be three 2cy and a 4cy at present.

Amazing stuff.