Tuesday 13 September 2011

Local YL Gulls and a bit of other stuff...

I've not done masses of birding lately, mainly due to continued decorating, nasty weather, a flu/cold and lots and lots of report writing so I've mainly been making do with what I can find while out walking the dogs.

The number of Lesser Black-backed Gulls in the LDV has been steadily increasing over the past couple of weeks. I've seen a couple of flocks locally and have been focussing on a flock near home which last weekend peaked at around 300+ birds. This flock contained a decent scattering of Great Black-backed Gulls (the first real flock noted by me locally) and also included at least 2 Yellow-legged Gulls but unfortunately they got flushed by a farm vehicle before I could get my scope sorted. Also at the weekend, 2 Yellow-legged Gulls were seen in the north of the valley, with another bird in the east of the valley.

The numbers of gulls in the field appear variable with some days none been present but other days quite a few about. Yesterday there was only 35 Lesser Black-backs and 1 Yellow-legged Gull but today there was approximately 100 Lessers, with at least 4 Yellow-legs present.


© David Iliff 2007 Yellow-legged Gull (note this is not the actual bird(s) seen!

The House Martins in the nest on the neighbours house appear to be very close to fledging (hopefully they will make it this time!). There has been a decent passage of Swallows over the last few days locally with a fair few Yellow Wagtail and Meadow Pipit passing over too.

There has been a few passage Common Whitethroat and Chiffchaff noted on the local dog walk circuit and the number of Starlings are rocketing up too.

Of note on my dog walk this morning was a Water Vole that gave decent views. While in the office today I added an 'office tick' in the form of Snow Goose!

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