Thursday 19 January 2017

White Winged Wonders ..... At Dungeness

Juvenile Iceland Gull.

On the 17th January i headed down to Dungeness in the hope of seeing the 2 juvenile Iceland Gulls that had been seen the previous day at 'The Patch' , i didn't get down there til mid morning and the Iceland Gulls had already been seen , i walked down to the 2nd hide which is quite close to 'The Patch' and there was only one other birder there who informed me he hasn't seen them yet !!!!!

Having a preen.

There were hundreds of gulls over the patch and i started looking through them , i instantly saw a cracking ♂ Eider in the middle of the Gull frenzy which was a new bird for my year list.

I then soon picked out 1 juvenile Iceland Gull which was on the water and flying towards the 'boil' every now & again , i tried to get the other birder onto it but he just could not pick it out , two other birders joined us and i managed to get one of them onto it .

Whilst watching this superb Iceland Gull i also noticed there were a few gulls beginning to roost on the beach and as luck would have it the 2nd juvenile Iceland Gull was with them , wow what  cracking birds to see and fortunately everyone saw this bird.


Iceland Gull.

There was a good selection of gulls on the beach with the Iceland Gull , mainly Herring & Black headed gulls but also a single Kittiwake and a couple of Common Gulls were also present.

Plenty of Guillemots & Razorbills were moving off shore plus Red Throated Diver & Common Scoter were also seen .

I then headed to the fishing boats and saw lots of gulls roosting on the beach and amongst them was a really smart Glaucous Gull.

Having a yawn.

Glaucous Gull.

Looking sleepy. 

Really pleased to see these white winged wonders amongst the regular gulls , i decided to head to the Rspb reserve to try and see the Long Eared Owls but they weren't showing today , however the Ring Necked Duck was still on Cooks pool.

Ring Necked Duck.

There was also several Tree Sparrows around the feeders at the Rspb reserve entrance.

Tree Sparrow.













2 comments:

  1. I wonder if I got to Iceland, will these white winged gulls be fairly common?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Glaucous Gulls breed in certain parts of Iceland & Iceland Gulls are just winter visitors i believe Simon , so would think both would be fairly common in winter months ?!

    ReplyDelete

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