This afternoon an alert came through from Richard Allan advising that a Little Gull was on the river, foraging over the salt marsh close to the railway bridge. This is an uncommon bird on the Adur, although some are occasionally seen offshore, so we dashed round, and within minutes were enjoying good views of an adult bird, readily identifiable by the dark underwings. Although on the wrong side of the river, at times it strayed closer, at one point landing on the water not far from us, before taking off and returning to its favoured location by the salt marsh.
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| Little Gull |
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| Little Gull (Richard Allan) |
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| Little Gull (Richard Allan) |
As we watched, we were soon joined by Jerry who drew attention to a couple of adult Yellow-legged Gulls, with clean, white heads, darker backs than on adjacent Herring Gulls, and showing limited white on the primaries. Although by no means common, this species is becoming increasingly frequent on the river at this time of year, but doesn’t always show as well as these birds. It was good to see them swimming at high tide, rather than scanning through large flocks of gulls loafing on the mudbanks.
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| Yellow-legged Gull |
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| Yellow-legged Gull (Richard Allan) |
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| Yellow-legged Gull (Richard Allan) |
It made for a pleasing interlude on a rather wet and dreary day.
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