Through a glass darkly

Glaucous Gull ~ Larus hyperboreus ~ at Birkdale

This 1st winter Glaucous Gull ~ Larus hyperboreus ~ has been at Birkdale, Merseyside, since around 20th December 2011. It’s feeding well but has a gammy right leg and lies down for long periods (as you will see) … let’s hope it makes it. I caught up with it today – it was very, very windy, and in the video you can see Godwits almost getting blown over! – so the film is exceptionally wobbly and serves merely as a record.

Sometimes seen around the car park at Weld Road, I found it a few hundred metres further down towards Ainsdale, past Taggs Island, in with a large wader roost at high tide. I also had an adult Med Gull, a handful of Twite, several jack Snipe, and some glorious wader sights at what was a very high tide – 9.5m with the wind right behind it. Great mid-winter birding. Sublime guitar playing on the video by Tony McManus replaces the horrible wind noise captured by the Nikon P5100 that I shot this on, through a Swarovski ATS80HD.

Photography was even harder due to the very high winds, but here are a couple of record shots …

December 28, 2011 - Posted by Simon Glinn | Merseyside