Venus Pool - Yellow legged Gulls and co

I put in a few hours Gull watching today and it paid off with five species seen. Top of the bill were a couple of Yellow-legged Gulls and they took up most of my time, patiently waiting for flight!

First off was a 3rd winter YLG, fist picked up by John Martin in the morning and here it is leaving...

It flew back in mid afternoon but I had to ignore it as there was suddenly an adult YLG too. A much cleaner bird! Here's the two together...

And a comparison with Lesser Black-backed Gull...

Here's the adult YLG departing...

Two other species were present, an adult Herring Gull, keeping tucked away at the back of the crowd for much of the time!

I did manage to get its departure...

Let's not forget the noisy Black-headed Gulls?

And the last species turning up was a 1st winter Common Gull! 

Not a bad session with counts of YLG 2, LesserBB 120+, BH Gull 120, Herring Gull 1 and Common Gull 1. Oh and with Great White Egret (coming next) , Redshank, Little Egret (7) Curlew (2), Cetti's very vocal too!

There was even aviation interest as the final flight shot was courtesy of the RAF and a Hawk (7K017) Shawbury bound with landing gear down at just 1250ft (taken from the memorial hide).

Venus Pool - Yellow-legged Gull

Not a lot happening today apart from an influx of gulls: 40+ Black-headed and 25 Lessers plus...wait for it, a Yellow-legged Gull on the middle island. I'll spare you the distant shots, it was all about the take off shots when it flew a little closer...

As you can see, in primary moult and a little untidy!

Nice one!

Venus Pool - Yellow-legged Gull (2w)

After the adult Yellow-legged Gull seen in September here, nice to another one and this time a 2nd winter bird (looking remarkably similar to one seen by Dave Chapman the previous day). It was annoyingly always behind the small groups of Lesser BBs but eventually showed well...

With something unseen putting all the Lapwings up, it was soon time for flight shots!

Mostly underwing to start off with..

But eventually giving a clear view of the saddle, nearly fully mature and a feature quite distinctive against the mostly dark wings for this age of YLG...

A farewell bank as it left heading over towards the fishing pool...

Venus Pool - Yellow-legged Gull

My timing was impeccable, sensing that something of interest would materialise at VP, I plugged for an early afternoon visit... And after bumping into John Martin who was driving out, turned out he was sure there was an adult Yellow-legged Gull present from partial views of one 'resolutely sat down'!

It was still there as I got to the hide, except it was now on the water and showing well...

Always the centre of attention :-)

And after a false start or two...

It was soon to be airborne!

Picking a really nice flight line, I couldn't have wished for better?

Some new primaries developing nicely.

Gaining height...

Most of the big flock of Lesser BBs were off too and it was not to be seen again...

On this day (Jan 16th)... 2014 - Yellow-legged Gulls!

January normally means Gull watching but I'll have to be content with previous posts for now! Depite being relatively common locally (Telford) their 'smartness' always stands out...

Still no white-winger on offer but a creditable 5 Yellow-legged Gulls (3 ad / 2 3rd w) in a frantic 'in/out' pre-roost wash today! I managed to pause the scan to catch three of them.....

Two adults....

Plus a 3rd Winter....

Classy gulls which still stand out amongst the hordes of now  'white-headed' Herring Gulls!

Shropshire - Happy New Year

I'd almost forgotten how to put a post together after a bit of a break from birding and blogging! But January 1st is always a great motivator with the list slate wiped clean (not that I kept any lists in 2019!!) Therein lies the problem, no list = no motivation so I'm going to revisit the Shropshire 'January list'. Simply how many birds can I see during the month of January within the county border? And ideally beat the '101' tally from Jan 2017!

I didn't exactly  hit the ground running as I missed the dawn exodus of the VP Whooper Swan, Egyptian (x2) and White-fronted Goose! Never mind I managed to catch up with the distant  Whooper Swan - relocated to one of the fields near Cross Houses...

Virtually all of the morning was spent wandering the reserve with Dave Chapman and smarting from the early 'misses' I still managed to get my Shire list up to 50 by late morning. No real surprises but the highlight was probably at least four Water Rail from the Fen hide...

And then, opting for a quick check of the pool before leaving - the Egyptian Geese were back in town!

The afternoon was spent near Shifnal, failing miserably to see the 'Sewage Works' Yellow Browed Warbler :-( A consolation adult Yellow-legged Gull at Priorslee lake helped but I'll have to await a return of a Caspian?

I might even be tempted to get out again tomorrow!

Venus Pool - Yellow-legged Gull

Unless my memory is failing me, it's probably 10 years or more since I saw one of these at VP! An adult with moulting primaries...

All good things come to an end as it eventually flew off

Med Gull next!