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Sunday 16 February 2014

Sightings

An early morning trip to Barry Boating Lake and then Barry Docks proved fruitless with no Long-tailed Duck or Black-throated Divers. A stop at Cosmeston on the way back finally produced a decent bird with the Lesser Scaup still on West Lake along with Tufted Duck, Pochard, Gadwall & a Kingfisher whizzing around. 

This afternoon there were a large number of gulls on the roof of Lamby Tip Recycling Centre mainly Herring with a few LBBGs. Highlight though was a 1st winter Caspian Gull that appeared on the lip of the roof for a few minutes before disappearing towards the tip when the gull flock spooked. Spent some time waiting for the gulls to reappear, and although a good number came back no further sign of the Caspian Gull. Also a Gloucs Landfill Herring Gull Blue 772.  Most of the large gulls sit on the tip side of the roof so are not always visible from the road. Best to walk up Cors Crychydd Reen for a few hundred yards to look back at the roof.  The turnover of gulls is also quite high, but there is no real way of seeing the gulls on the main tip from public view points. 

6 comments:

MITCH said...

Hopefully it will spend time washing at Lamby lake!

Randal M Snowdrop said...

Great find Al. A well deserved first for Cardiff and Wales.

Alex said...

I don't know about a first for Wales, there have been some good sightings by other observers but I guess WRP are waiting for a well photographed bird before taking the quantum leap. As things currently stand Caspian Gull is according to the record books rarer in Glamorgan than Ivory, Ross's, Franklin and Laughing Gull ;-)

Slaphead said...

If you can get a shot of it and it is accepted,it will be the most significant gull record of recent times!! what with the Thayer's now looking doubtful and the Ross's that is'nt even a county tick for some. Nice one Alex and thanks for the very prompt text, VC41.5 bird-info-service is working well.

MauriceC said...

Weather lousy today. Hope to give it a look tomorrow.

Randal M Snowdrop said...

No sign in the icy rain between 3-3:30. It's also much, much rarer than dark-winged Iceland gulls.