A little bit of Gull watching.

Hi readers, me and Dad decided to do a bit of Chasewater Gull watching, this week we had some success, but before that we decided to take our regular look at Sandwell Valley, sadly the hide was closed today due to a group of people from University helping out with the reserve by putting down gravel on the left side of the hide, I presume that this is mainly to help breeding birds such as Little Ringed Plover. Anyway here's our sightings,

RSPB Sandwell Valley- Snipe x3, Shovela x3, Great crested Grebe x2, Goosander 5+, Pochard x1, Wigeon 10+, Teal x2, Herring Gull x1, Fieldfare 10+, Redwing 10+, Tufted Duck 10+, Mallard 5+, Lapwing 10+, Oystercatcher x2, Black headed Gull 50+, Lesser Black backed Gull x2, Starling x2, Coot 10+, Canada Goose 20+.

I was pleased to see the Lapwing returning to the Island today, we also had some disturbance from the work party, this was in some ways helpful because it flushed some Snipe up. I don't really like it when birds are disturbed like this but if it helps breeding birds in the summer then in really has to be done.

After our usual trip to the valley, we decided to have a look around Chasewater, we hoped to see a Brambling on the feeders but this proved to be harder than we thought. After a look for the Brambling a a good stare at the Gulls we decided to retreat to the cafe near Train station. After a good cup of tea we decided to make our way back for one last look at the Gulls, on our way back we were luckily stopped by a birder who then told us two Glaucous Gulls were about, we first located the closest of the two gulls which turned out to be a very obvious Glauc that was pail white, we then decided to go and take a closer look.

We then joined two other birders who were also looking at the closest Glaucous Gull, me and dad then had a very good look at the bird before it flew even closer to us which allowed me to get the picture bellow. After around 10-15 minutes one of the birders located the second Glaucous Gull which was much further away, this gull was more sandy coloured so was much less obvious but I quickly located it n my scope. So to me Gull watching was a success today, the only disappointment was that we couldn't wait around for the Iceland Gulls to turn up but we were still quite happy with the two Glaucous's we had. Here's our full sightings list,

Chasewater- Goldeneye x2, Black headed Gull 100+, Oystercatcher x1, Common Gull x2, Lesser Black backed Gull 20+, Herring Gull 10+, Glaucous Gull x2, Mute Swan 10+, Coot 5+, Pied Wagtail x3. 

Today has been a learning curve for me, although I have seen Glaucous Gull before I really wanted to get a good look at, and you can see from the photo bellow we did get a good look.

Glaucous Gull at Chasewater

Thanks for reading have a good week all- WMBB