Anybody who cares to divert their attention from the Blyth's reed warbler at Hope Carr, and instead look over the sewage works next door can find some interesting birds. Apart from a 1st winter / female black redstart, up to four green sandpipers are present, also several grey wagtails and lots of pied wagtails and meadow pipits. There is a black-headed gull flock of around 200 birds which occasionally includes an adult Mediterranean gull and a magnificent leucistic black-headed gull. Unsurprisingly both of these gulls regularly frequent the Pennington Flash gull roost, the Mediterranean gull has a metal ring on its left leg and is a probably the female which has been returning to the Flash for years, whilst the leucistic bird is back for at least its second winter.
Given the release this week of an adult ivory gull which was taken into care at Stranraer, the appearance of the leucistic bird at Hope Carr was understandably a heart stopping moment! Even the 3rd winter Iceland gull which feeds at Atherton and roosts at the Flash put in an appearance a couple of weeks ago, leaving yellow-legged gull as the only regularly occurring Pennington Flash gull which I haven't seen at Hope Carr.
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