Terrible conditions at Fly Flatts today with 0 okts cloud cover and wall to wall sunshine on a light SE>3 and hazy visibility. The morning was bad whilst the afternoon was too hot to handle.
A real struggle today with hazy visibility beyond the outskirts of the area and very little movement in the sky whilst local birds were reluctant to move about.
A good walk round this morning before the heat got up but this afternoon was a matter of a quick walk then a watch from the shade of the clubhouse trying to keep in the SE breeze to freshen it up a bit. Too hot for the birds, too hot for the dogs and certainly too hot for me.
Two Ringed Plover still present and a bit of sky movement but otherwise down to a few gulls including the Herring type thats causing a few problems, mainly because I can,t get a decent plumage shot as it only appears in the afternoons and is never there early morning before the heat distortion appears. Its been a cracking year for Yellow Legged gulls this year with 6 definite birds at Fly Flatts plus 2 iffys and probably several sub adults missed.
Such a hard task splitting the sub adults and even the adult big gulls can throw you with LBBs with pink legs and , as JB pointed out the other day, even an adult Herring with yellow legs is not forced to be a Michahellis.
Never the less, I enjoy the gulls and they do make you delve into plumages and age groups although time and patience is needed plus a good memory, non of which I seem to have but I can usually pick out a spurious gull from a bog standard by it being in an odd place at an odd time and usually alone, although this is not always the case. Its one of those feelings you get when something does,nt seem right about it, although identifying it is another matter.
Vis Mig
9 Swallow.......................>S
29 Mipits........................>SW
2 Lapwing......................>S
1 Curlew........................>W
Bloggers
2 Ringed Plover
5 LBBs
3 Herring
sev Mipits
BS