A Canny Weekend! 7/2/09

After seeing the bird north east blog with an Iceland gull at QE2, we decided to try there on our way to Linton Ponds to look for the one gull I have been dying to see. The Glaucous Gull. When we arrived there must have been 200 gulls there and half of them were black-headed gulls. As we pulled up into the car park we saw a wigeon grazing right in front of the car but because of the bad weather conditions, I didn't get any great shots but they weren't bad. We scanned the gulls on the frozen pond but no sign of it so we left for Linton. When we got there, we opened the window and we saw 1000+ gulls on the pond. I have never seen so many in my life. We had no chance of seeing the glauc here but we did see some ducks. A female pochard was just in front of the hide diving and 5 shoveler crossed the pond in front of the hide also which was a nice sight. After that we decided that Cresswell was our next plan so we moved to there. As soon as we got in, a little grebe greeted us in front of the hide and the barn owl 5 minutes later. If we had arrived 5 minutes later, we would have seen it sitting on the wall next to the cars but still a nice view. Later on a flock of 50+ teal flew in and I scanned them for anything rare and there was 4 pintail in the middle of them which was a new one for me. Also, speaking of ducks there was 2 scaup in the middle of the pond and 3 shelduck on the far bank. Later on, a bittern was spotted in the reeds on the bend halfway over the pond. Nothing else though, so we went to the Briar Dene car park on our way home to see the med gull and we saw it but it didn't come close enough for a photo. There was some starlings having a bath and a redshank on the golf course so not bad, eh?!

Starlings Barn Owl

Little Grebe Shoveler Wigeon