The Safari was disappointed not to be able to get out early doors on to Patch 2 due to incessant gloom so we had to wait until lunchtime before we could get our daily fix of wildlife.
Lunchtime came round eventually and we went straight out over the road to the wall. We have a little project to do with the local gulls so we set about counting these before we looked at the sea. It was quite productive from the off. There were over 400 gulls along the whole length of our beach but a short stretch with a decent wreck of shellfish had attracted the majority of them so after our general gull count it was time to work through them more thoroughly. It wasn't long before we found a couple of Herring Gulls with far more white in their wing-tips as the 'normal' ones but in the bright light it was hard to tell if they were any darker on the mantle than 'ours' - ehh Herring Gulls don't you just luv em!
While we were studying one of these a number of smaller gulls walked past - one of them was an adult Mediterranean Gull (P2 #29) - whoopy-doo!!! Only just about annual on the beach here so we were well chuffed. Checking further on we thought we might have had another with a dodgy leg flying along over the top of the feeding flock. Sadly we didn't see it land and then couldn't find it again if it was one. It might have flown much further down the beach well beyond our southern boundary where a good number of gulls had gathered to roost and mooch about.
Out at sea we had nothing in the heavy chop apart from an uncountable number of Common Scoters and an uncounted much smaller number of Cormorants.
The walk back over the road and into the office gave us four House Sparrows (P2 #30) flying from one side of the rear garden to the other, so not a bad visit over the road at all.
Where to next? If we remember to take our wellies tomorrow we might be able to get down to that strand-line and see if anything of particular note and interest has been washed up.
In the meantime let us know who the celebrity guest was in your outback.
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