1ST OR 2ND WINTER GLAUCOUS GULL

After the sighting of the glaucous gull by gerald and myself  bit of a debate on the age of the bird i called 2nd winter,as i am no expert on any gulls i let you decide,why i called it as a 2nd winter, you can see a pink tip on the end of the bill and it a lot blotchier than a 1st winter,also a lot paler still a bulk of a bird,these are my record shots of the fly by not the best

HAPPY AS LARRY

First day out birding all week,with staying at home yesterday doing my yearly jobs,this meant i was out all day yippee,arriving on the pow at first light and chatting to the bin man/fisherman,who was setting up and dropped his crab net over the side straight a gull flew over and started feeding,cracking views of a 1st winter little gull,which had been hanging about since the 1st of the month,so the next six hours was spent trying in vain to get half decent shots,i was later joined by steve and phil,bloody bird never slowed down let alone sit on the water

after sometime phil and steve departed and gerald turn up having a general chat moaning about the lack of white wingers,as gerald was just about to leave a 2nd winter glaucous gull turned up of nowhere and flew straight towards the ferries we only had a view seconds with the bird so the shots are bit naff 

went home happy as larry

JUST A FEW KITTIWAKES

Habour vist again this morning, hoping for few auks to of enter the inner after yesterday mass flyby only two was noted and the lone female eider was still hanging about,a very brief vist from a med gull

a single teal was hanging  about and 7 brent geese flew over

still five crested grebe grace the harbour,can't wait for the cold snap to pick things up a bit

as the gulls go the numbers have dropped off a least 13 great black backs but mainly juv birds,but no common gulls seen, 33 herring gulls that mainly sat on the hoverpad

but the main stars today was the kittiwakes, i counted 5 and 1 juv bird they was having a field day as the fisherman was only catch small stuff that went back in

this one was just having eye bigger then it belly blew my whites on these lol lol

HUMES.........................HMMMMMMMMMMMMM WARBLER

Having heard about the humes/yellow browned warbler in ramgates cemetery i had to wait until today to pop down,with the debate still going on about the bird about it id,myself no expert only every seen one last weekend so it would be interesting to compare the two,well it called like one but it looked more like a yellow browed,but as i said no expert but still a cracking brown bird

WELLIES NEEDED

Having not been out much in kent in the last couple of weeks and working most of the christmas break,i headed out yesterday to dover to see what is lurking about,the female eider is still in the docks hiding up the top by the cement works,very guillis floating about with this i spent the next 2 hours watching the harbour entrance,with a single red throat past east and plenty of auks,then i pick up a whitish auk flying quite low to the surface of the sea,it was not as large as the guillimots that where  flying by,tip to tail it was whitish with a white under wing,i knew what it was as i have seen these before in flight on my many trips up north,a black guillimot heading east,great kent tick for me.
SUNDAY
Trip to dungerness with adam,arranging to meet adam at half seven by the light house of course he was late,so i headed down the long pits, well the trapping area with richard roberts we had a quick brush up on the call and headed into to the trapping area which is up to your knee deep in some places spotting a couple of great tits flitting about in the trees and then i spotted it a humes leaf warbler just flitting about and just sitting there crackings views calling as it went,

not my greatest shots ever,got to keeping up with rob some how as he gets well,we then went at got adam to see the bird,by this time a few people had turn up so we made are retreat and headed up to the patch meeting richard and mick on the way leaving richard to have a nap,with adam needing caspo it was not long until the master picked one out a nice 2nd winter caspo

well pleased with this then mick pick out a nice adult little gull super day had by all

JUST A BIT BEHIND

Just a little bit behind with my blog,been working and twitching yet again so no time to do my blog,well last sunday did the epic trip to twitch three birds in one day,i was with martyn,sue and marc we left whitstable at silly oclock for are first bird which was the brunnichs guillemot at portland

pick up black guilli as well along a good many mergansers

we moved on to brixham harbour for the white billed diver which showed well but distance,last port of call was broadsands for cirl bunting