Poor weather, an early dentist appointment and a day off to Kings Lynn gave me know hope of an early seawatch!
How fortunes can change...........
When visiting Lynn I always drop in at the Fisher Fleet and check the gulls at the cockle shell feeding station. To be fair I've done this rather alot this year and apart from the odd colour-ringed herring gulls I've had little else. However today was about to change that, as on arrival at lunchtime there was an obvious white-winged gull in full view with about 50 herring gulls. The camera got me plenty of shots of it, then I called Robert Smith as he only lives down the road at South Wootton.
By the time he arrived I was starting to have my doubts about it's identity and was considering a hybrid due to dark marking at the tip of the right wing, this could clearly be seen in one of Robert's photos, also the bird looked pretty big as well, certainly structurely as big as any of the herring gulls.
Under pressure to move on to King's Lynn town centre I left Robert with the bird and advised him to send the photos to Mark Golley for his thoughts. Soon after leaving the bird disappeared and Robert went home to send Mark the photos. Around mid pm I recieved a call from Robert that Mark felt the bird was likely to be an Iceland gull. The dark marking on the primaries being of course staining from the horrible muddy water it was residing in.
I told Robert I'd check on the way home, and to my surprise the bird was back feeding with the black-headed gulls even though it was close to dusk. Robert put the news out soon afterwards. See link to Robert's footage...
Late afternoon saw me counting gulls heading to roost from Austin Street in Lynn, from 1515 to 1551hrs good numbers of mostly herring gull and black-headed gulls headed north-west into The Wash, presumably from the Nar Valley. Totals were 3465 herring gull, 3533 black-headed gulls, 8 common gulls (many probably overlooked) and 8 great black-backed gulls. On returning to the Iceland gull the gulls were still pouring over so numbers far exceeded this.
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