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2nd Winter Iceland Gull. 1st Winter Iceland Gull. Before my late shift in the afternoon at the General I nipped over to Albert Village Lake again to check out the gulls. Over the period of a couple of hours of watching the gulls I noted again that the 1st winter and 2nd winter Iceland Gulls were still around. As you can imagine I took a number of record shots of the birds. Other gulls sightings included at least 1 adult Yellow-legged Gull , 1 adult Caspian Gull and a "probable" 3rd winter Caspian Gull . As this site seems to be going through a purple patch at the moment I would imagine that I will checking it on regular basis in the next month or so?

2nd winter Glaucous Gull 2nd winter Iceland Gull Adult Iceland Gull After my exploits down in the south of the county looking for Iceland Gulls at Shawell tip I decide to check out Albert Village Lake in the extreme north-west of the county to see if there were any more Iceland Gulls to photo? So earlier this morning myself and Dave Mack (McWilliams) drove over to Albert Village to see if we could see any of the Iceland Gulls which had been reported over the last few days. Parking the car by the large locked car park, Dave suddenly realised that he had forgotten his bins and left them at home!! So Dave using my Nikon bins and me using my Kowa scope we walked down the track and slowly started scanning the gull flock from the shoreline. Within in about 5 minutes of scanning the large gull flock we found a 2nd winter Iceland Gull resting on the water! Pleased on finding this bird I took a few record shots as this was a new bird to be reported at this site. Scanning further along the line...

After finding the Iceland Gull I went home to watch the Six Nations and hopefully a Welsh victory against the old enemy Ingerland.... As usual the predictable bias from John Inverdale and Austin Healy was clear to see, and listening to the pundits(minus of course Jiffy) you would have thought that England were favourites to win the match minus the fact that Wales were the current Grand Slam champions! How wrong there were!! With Martin Johnson managing the England Team, it wasn't surprising that England had come to Cardiff with negative ideas of how to play the game (ally Leicester Tigers) and as expected England played a very defensive game. In the end the game was of a war of attrition between the two packs of forwards, but it was great to see that Wales were the composed team and ran out worthy winners in the end 23-15. Although Joe Worsley won man of match for his defensive duties, I thought Gethin Jenkins, Ian Gough and Ryan Jones were very impressive in the Wel...

Following information from the LROS website the previous day that a 1st winter Iceland Gull had been seen at Shawell tip near Lutterworth I decided to nip out late morning to see if the gull was still around? Getting to the tip just before the morning shift had finished I parked up in a nearby lay-by and watched the gulls by the roadside. Scanning through the large number of gulls I could not pick up anything which looked like an Iceland Gull. At this point most of the gulls got up and flew off in a southerly direction, Bugger!! Checking the fields just east of the village there still no sign of the Iceland Gull but a good assortment of the commoner gulls. From here I moved on to Stanford Reservoir which was just down the road. Parking on the roadside, I walked down to the dam and noted that most of the reservoir was frozen. In the free bits of water were good numbers of Pochards, Tufted Ducks and 8 Goosanders. Scanning further right over a mix of large gulls standing on the ice I no...

Views of the countryside by Tebay. View of snow covered trees near Queen's Park, Glasgow. Queen's Park, Glasgow looking towards the Trossochs. Same view but with more Snow! Another view from the Tebay services. More photos of Glasgow in the Snow and more photos of Tebay services when I drove back home from the Rugby match.

On route to Scotland for the Six Nations match I stopped off at Tebay Services probably the most pictureque motorway services in the country to take some photos of the lovely Snow!

Over last weekend I stayed with my brother Tim and family (Lou, Laurie, Hector and Tammy the dogs) in Glasgow for the Six Nations rugby match Scotland V Wales which was played at Murryfield stadium in Edinburgh. As usual with this fixture, Welsh supporters were out in force and a good 20,000 must have made there way up from the valleys to get up to Scotland, and I would imagine possible the same amount of pints were drunk over the period of the weekend!? Wales ran out comfortable winners in the match 26-13 , with Wales scoring tries from Tom Shanklin, Alan Wyn Jones, Leigh Halfpenney and the magical Shane Williams. Scotland replied with a nice try scored by Max Evans (Maybe Mr Hadden should have had him on from the start?). Hopefully this is the start of another Grand Slam for Wales?

As it has been snowing over most the last week I took a number of photos of the heaviest snowfall for the UK for the last eighteen years. These range from my local park to my journey (Tebay services and surrounding area) into Scotland to watch the rugby match between Scotland and Wales.

Here is small reply for my mate John's Blog "The Drunkbirders". As he seems to be getting grief from a TWAT called petetank11 , why don't you just grow up and stop being so thin-skinned. I think it is called freedom of speech and we don't live in a fascist state, so if you are not happy with his blog, DON'T READ IT!!!! Rant over, normal service will return shortly......

Views of my garden and local park covered in lovely snow!!

The mighty Leicestershire Spartans! Over the last weekend me and John went to our annual trip to Hinckley United to see them play the mighty Blyth Spartans. Before getting to the match, we stopped off at Avery Hill, Braunstone to look at the large flock of Waxwings which had been around for the last few days. Counting at least 45 birds in the nearby trees we were soon back on the road to Hinckley. Meeting up with Mark and a couple of friends at the Railway Inn in Hinckley town centre, we had a couple of drinks there before meeting up with the rest of Blyth Spartans away support at Hinckley United social club. The match was pretty uneventful except for some shite decisions by the referee, some fanastic unhealthy food in the shape of a beef burger and chips at half-time and Blyth going down to two goals to one at the final whistle. As usual the banter was great from the Blyth supporters and it always surprises me the amount of supporters this great non-league club take to away matches! H...