Meeting up with Neil Hagley this afternoon at Shawell Balancing Lake almost the first gull I looked at was an Adult Ring-Billed Gull . Just to make sure I wasn't hallucinating I ask Neil to have a look at this gull in my scope and he came to the same conclusion. GET IN!!! So over the next half an hour we ticked off all the salient features of the bird and then phoned out the news. As this was probably only the sixth record for Leicestershire and Rutland as you can imagine I took quite a few digishots of the gull. Joined later by the Groby crew (Allen, Andy F and Paul) just before the Ring-billed Gull flew off towards the tip, it wasn't long before the group picked at least 3 Yellow-legged Gulls and 3 Caspian Gulls (2 Adults and 1 2nd-winter bird) in the large gull flock. So to put this sighting of the Ring-billed Gull in context, it's probably only the sixth time it has been recorded in the county.It was a county tick for myself, Neil and the Groby crew and Ring-billed G...
Well over the last week and since returning from Biscay I have finally added Wryneck to my county list when I saw the long staying bird at Great Glen on the Sunday. After that I found a couple of good birds down the Soar Valley which pushed me past 140 target mark. These included a juvenile Marsh Harrier flying over Cossington Meadows LRWT, which John Hague just about twitched from London!?!, a nice looking adult winter Black Tern at Watermead CP South and a "dodgy?" Cape Shelduck on Wanlip Meadows LRWT which was a Soar Valley tick for me! The Wryneck at Great Glen and the Cape Shelduck at Wanlip Meadows.
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