Gulls come good

I'd been looking forward to my trip out this morning to look for gulls at Cotham Landfill, and I'd lined up access with a local farmer (who I play hockey with) to the fields to the east of the landfill site where the gulls have been loafing recently. However, they weren't there when I arrived - typical! One group was sat in the field immediately east of the landfill next to the road, but it's impossible to stop here safely, and access on foot would have disturbed them. There were some more in a field to the south, but they were largely obscured. Not a good start.

Viewing the landfill from the Sustrans cyclepath with runs past the site initially didn't look much more promising - there simply weren't many gulls. Fortunately, a bulldozer fired up for 10 minutes and spread some rubbish around, which suddenly brought the gulls in. Although for much of the time the majority were out of site behind a ridge (and there weren't huge numbers), they eventually co-operated and I was able to pick out a juvenile Glaucous Gull which suddenly made my efforts worthwhile. I'd left my digiscoping adaptor in the car, so the pictures I took were handheld and are particularly bad, but you get the idea...

 

Juvenile Glaucous Gull at Cotham Landfill

 

I couldn't find anything else unusual amongst the Herring and Great Black-backed Gulls, not even a Yellow-leg, but did have a single Waxwing land in the hedge next to me briefly (before it flew off north) and there were 7 Siskin and 3 Lesser Redpoll in the alders on the restored landfill to the west, plus lots of Redwing and Fieldfare in the area.