Sunday 21 November 2010

Gull gets the last laugh

Not much birding done this weekend. Saturday morning involved the annual stock up of coal for the winter, so didn't get out birding until the afternoon.

At Brookleys Lake were 24 Mandarin, 2 Goosander, 40 Tufted, 8 Pochard, 2 Gadwall, 1 Kingfisher. Uttoxeter Quarry had 19 Goosander, 13 Golden Plover in amongst 500 Lapwing, 4 Pochard, 1 Goldeneye, 40 Wigeon, 2 Green Sand, 5 Snipe and a Grey Wagtail.

Back at the quarry on Sunday morning, not a lot of change, but I did get chance to take some pictures of some duck having a Sunday morning lie in:



Andy and Malc were also around and had found a Chiffchaff. On getting to the spot where it was, there were actually two Chiffchaffs, great stuff! Malc also mentioned he was going to the gull roost at Foremark Reservoir later, just to see if last night's Laughing Gull was to reappear. Ooh, can I come?

I've seen one Laughing Gull before, in Sunderland, but it was nearly 15 years ago. So a bit later off we went in Mad Malc's Mystery Machine, along the A50 and into South Derbyshire.

Plenty of gulls to look through and plenty of birders looking. Unfortunately there was no sign, best I could do was a couple of Yellow-legged Gulls. But hopefully, the Laughing Gull might appear again somewhere during the winter.

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