Gull Fest Monday

Ironically Monday is the only day the title doesn't fit because that is my rest day that I get every week and take of course, this morning was sunny but still very cool in the freshening easterly wind and it didn't feel much like spring, 7 Skylarks flew east and 2 Siskins went over east too. A couple of Jackdaws hung around Whiteness and were probably migrants. I had spent two hours out and after some thought I made the desicion to go home and wait for the milder air to arrive tomorrow morning along with the hoped for spring migrants.

 

At around midday I decided to give the new bicycle a good thrashing, as I needed to adjust the gears, 21 in all, as the screws that control them needed some slight adjustments so all 21 gears would work freely. I had bombed up to Foreness when I spotted a huge white gull coming in from the west, I put the bins on it, a brute of a Glaucous Gull, it touched down on the rocks below Foreness pumping station and I cut down the narrow steep path to the beach below to view. I had been watching the Glaucous for some two minutes when another bird appeared in view behind it, a Caspian Gull, a 2cy bird and very smart too, a real beauty and all the features were there, certainly no doubt with this one a real 10/10 scored on all relevant ID features,

 

Then the fun begins as I didn't have the camera with me, expensive photographic equipment and rough, bumping coastal cycling don't really mix but I'll have to come up with a solution before long as I feel a camera is very much a tool that will soon become a virtual must in verification of rare/scarce species. The phone call to the other half pleading to bring out the camera was fraught with danger but had to be tried and it duly worked, I thank the other half for doing this but as I waited the tide began to advance at an alarming rate and the gulls were slowly but surely leaving and flying off eastwards. I could see the other half along the cliff edge some half a mile way pacing towards me but the inevitable happened the Caspian took flight and as if to rub it in gave me a close fly past with 3 Herring Gulls in tow, as it headed east along the coast towards Whiteness rocks. The Glaucous was clearly getting ready to go too and as the camera and exhausted missus arrived I had five minutes to record the event before the Glaucous too made a break for it. A great bit of entertainment and once again a huge thanks to the missus, you're a star.

 

 

Glaucous Gull @ Foreness