The Pennington Flash gull roost - week 1

2cy Iceland Gull

Week one (for me) of watching the gull roost at Pennington Flash comes to an end with a very decent return. John Tymon lured me out last Friday (3rd) and immediately we hit the jackpot with a cracking adult yellow-legged gull and two Mediterranean gulls, an adult and a 1st winter, the latter a plumage I have never seen at the flash before. At least one more Mediterranean gull followed on Monday, before the star bird of the week on Wednesday, a smart 2nd calander year Iceland gull, possibly the returning bird from last year. This is a very early date for the species, in fact I've never seen one in November before, anywhere. It seems particularly early given that it's so far been a relatively mild winter, with other northern species such as whooper swans and woodcock present in much smaller numbers than would normally be expected at this time of year.

Adult Mediterranean Gull - Photo: John Tymon

First winter Mediterranean Gull - Photo: John Tymon

3rd calander year yellow-legged gull

Following close on the heals of the Iceland gull, Thursday saw the return of the 3rd calander year yellow-legged gull, which had been missing for around three weeks. This is also a very smart bird, and very aggresive, it often chases other gulls off the bouys and will attack whole flocks of coots to steal mussels. In fact that's a good way of locating the bird, look for a gull attacking coots. It won't always be this bird but usually it will be!

Yellow-legged gull robbing coots

Apologies for the quality of the photos by the way, most are taken on my phone, through the telescope, in dull often windy conditions and at a distance of 100 - 200m or more, then heavily cropped. It's a miracle I have any photos to be honest.

Scandinavian herring gull spp. argentatus

This is one of my favourite gulls, Scandinavian herring gull, or argentatus as we call it. Darker, bigger, heavily streaked head, they are often monsters! The arrival of the Iceland gull coincided with a build up of herring gulls which included several of these birds.

On Friday the adult and 3rd calander year yellow-legged gulls were again present, though frustratingly the former was very distant and we managed to pick out an adult Mediterranean gull.

Black-headed gulls