The dark side

I was coaxed by Dave F into a trip to Rufforth, near York, to look for gulls. Apprehensive both about standing in the cold for 7 hours and the evil that is large gulls, I agreed. Double long johns and McMuffins saw to the cold, while Dave, like an evil Obi-Wan, guided me into the dark side.

With an estimated 25,000 gulls visiting the tip and surrounding fields there was plenty to look through and almost from the word go Dave started picking out Caspian Gulls. Daunted at first, I even started to pick out a few of my own. By the end of the day we had seen a total of 22 Caspian Gull (9 1st winter, 9 2nd winter and 4 adults). This, along with a 3rd winter bird seen by others gave the highest ever single site, day total ever in Britain. Not a bad start!

Other gulls seen were 2 Iceland, 1 Yellow-legged, 1 Glaucous and 15+ Lesser Black-backed.

The only downside was that the gulls were too distant for the camera, so just a few crap phonescoped shots.



2nd winter Caspian Gull

1st and 2nd winter Caspian Gull

1st winter Glaucous Gull

2nd winter Iceland Gull