Thursday 20 February 2014

Little gulls...

For reasons best known to Little Gulls, Cogden Beach near Bridport seems to be the place to hang out at the moment. A field just off the beach has been attracting them for the last week or so and they've slowly been building in numbers from 6 to 10 to 12 to 16! With a break in the weather today, I decided to drive over and take a look for myself. On arrival it didn't look too promising, the field looked empty and only two other people were there staring out to sea. But, within a few minutes I saw an adult little gull flying down across the field and a few minutes later it was joined by 16 others, so 17 there at least, possibly a few more. After only five minutes, the whole flock moved out to sea and shortly afterwards another four birds came down across the field and headed out to sea too. I can't be sure the last four weren't part of the original flock that may have doubled back around, so I'm not counting them as extras. Fantastic little birds though and up there on my 'favourite gull' list only just beat into third place by med and laughing gulls. None of the birds settled but I did managed a few flyover shots as they battled against the south-westerly wind.

Adult Little Gull - shame I cut its wing off: R. Harris

Adult Little Gull, Cogden Beach: R. Harris

Adult Little Gull, Cogden Beach: R. Harris

Adult Little Gull, Cogden Beach: R. Harris
I also had a fly past 1st winter med and a rather sick looking Kittiwake sat in the field next to the track to the car park.

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