A bright and breezy start to the morning at Leeshaw with a biting W>5-6 at 2 degrees . The clear blue skies were soon extinguished with dark clouds and snow showers.
Very few gulls around the water today with just 4 Herrings and a low count of small gulls. Goosander numbers had gone up to 2 pairs on the water as well as the usual Mallards and Canada geese. Several Redwings were mobile moving through the distant Hawthorn bushes but very poor on Fieldfare this winter so far.
A trip to Mixenden mid afternoon was aborted for the 2nd day running with a grapevine text, as I drove through Bradshaw, from AC reporting 3 Med gulls at Thornton which resulted in a swing round in the road and ' lets go twitching'.
By the time I arrived, the sky had gone jet black and the a snow blizzard blasted across the gull fields. Luckily the gulls remained but were spread across 4 fields with about 1500 small gulls and all very mobile moving around from one field to the other.
Good to see AC up there who had seen the adult gull but not the 2 1st winter birds.
As the snow blizzard passed over I set up the scope and picked out the adult near the back of one of the fields. The bird stood out surprisingly well being much more butch than the Black Headeds and the lack of black on the primaries made it look very white. It had just a hint of hood showing as a smudge behind the eye as it moulted into full winter plumage, see pic on Andys Northowram blog.
Try as I may there was no way I could get it in the camera at the distance with the problem of, every time I found it in the scope I couldnt find it in the camera and then it either moved or the whole shebang took to the air landing in the next field so I had to start again. This, plus the heavy snow blizzards passing through made be give up and just watch it in the scope plus try to find the 2 other gulls with no joy but 1st years are much harder to pick out from the Black Headeds, if , like me, you have not had much experience with them.
As the light faded the entire gull flock blasted off and flew over Keelham landing briefly in the shay fields below Soil Hill before moving off towards the TMR roost.
Well to MP for finding the birds and to AC for relocating the adult and getting the call out. Nowt like a good twitch to see the year out.
Leeshaw
4 Herring
3 Cormorant
c 100 small gulls
sev Redwing
1 Wren
2 pr Goosander
+ usual sp.
Thornton
1 ad Med gull
c 1500 small gull
18 Herring gull
c 60 Lapwing
23 Redwing.
BS