Thursday 10 July 2014

Bowling Green Marsh - Ross's Gull etc

Bowling Green Marsh is certainly performing at the moment with waders in their 100's plus (with patience)  a rather desirable gull!

The waders as ever were quite distant and it was scope work for (and this was a typical high tide count) c150 Black-tailed Godwit, 5 Bar-tailed Godwit, 2 Spotted Redshank, c250 Redshank, 7 Dunlin, 1 Knot, 12 Whimbrel, c300 Curlew, 18 Greenshank and for completeness, 9 Lapwing, 3 Oystercatcher - not a bad assembly eh?

The closest bird of the day was also a goodie. This female Garganey was in the channel in front of the hide!








Record shots all the way for the rest of the post.....  It was about 2 hours before high tide and with in excess of 1,000 Black headed Gulls in - a small (solitary) newcomer made my day. Here it is flying in....


The somewhat tatty looking 2nd Summer Ross's Gull :-)




A nice comparison for size with this BHG.


I think it needs a few more primaries?


If the Ross's Gull was the star of the show, there were at least 7 Mediterranean Gulls of various ages.
A 1st Summer snoozing....


A 2nd Summer Mediterranean Gull standing out from the crowd!


Another 2nd Summer Med on the water


Having a wash.....


Adults too!




I'll finish with this adult departing....