I took the day off work on Friday to do a bit of birding. I wasn't exactly sure where I was going to go; I thought about the Dusky Thrush, but last time I headed that way during the week the traffic was horrendous so I chickened out. Ditto the Blue Rock Thrush. The Black-throated Thrush at Adwick was a definite contender but there was no early news so I wasn't going to risk it. I also considered my annual trip to Martin Mere where a Green-winged Teal had been putting in an odd appearance, but that was all so I decided against that too. Instead I decided to go up to the Fylde coast at Cockerham to look for the Red-breasted Goose that has been hanging around recently with the Pinks and a few Bean Geese. It wasn't that early when I arrived - probably around 08.15 - and straight away I noticed the wildfowlers had been out. They were stood at their usual parking spot obviously having finished the morning flight. I hadn't seen any geese in the fields and suspected that the shooting would have kept them off, so I turned around and went up to Thurnham where there had also been reports but again no joy. I headed back to Cockerham to see if the geese had started to settle now the wildfowlers had finished but again no signs of any geese in the fields! A little bit out of desperation I headed to Fluke Hall, an area where I've never seen anyone shooting and sure enough I found a sizeable flock of Pink-feet feeding in a distant field. Viewing was difficult as there was a hedge between us, but after spending 20-30 mins I was fairly confident I'd seen all the birds and there was no Red-breasted Goose, or Beans with them. I gave up! A quick check of twitter didn't inspire me, and with no high tide to wait for I went with my other option for the day - Martin Mere.
It took about an hour to make the journey, so I arrived just before lunch. As usual I headed straight for the Ron Barker Hide. There was a good number of Teal on the pools but after scanning several times I couldn't find any sign of the Green-winged Teal, and there were no reports from other birders either. However a Water Rail put in an appearance, as did a Marsh Harrier. After two hours enough was enough and rather than spending more time on the site I headed off to Pennington Flash to do the gull roost. A highly unusual thing for me to do.
At 3.15 I was on the south bank of the flash scanning the gulls in the hope of one of the white winged species that have been present sporadically. I was joined at about 3.30 by another Pennington regular which made the experience much more enjoyable!! An adult Mediterranean Gull was the star of the show. The large gulls were quite few in number, and the main Black-headed roost was, unusually, tucked right under the north bank instead of in the middle which made checking all the birds in that group very difficult.
Phonescoped Adult Mediterranean Gull
We also had a very unusual, very small Herring Gull. We did wonder whether we had a Ring-billed Gull. Quite a few features seemed to fit quite well, so we sent some images and some notes to the county recorder who's a bit of a Gull expert, but unfortunately he reckoned it was just a very small Argenteus Herring Gull. Disappointing but at the same time working through his comments was educational. I really should get into gulls. They provide some really challenging birding.
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