National Gull Week!

It's been good in Exmouth this week for the family laridae! Having seen a first-winter Kumlien's, found an adult of the same (sub)species and just missed our second Glaucous Gull of the year this week, I received another call late afternoon from Matt, this time informing me he had an adult Little Gull down in Exmouth behind the station. The weather was a bit hairy, a wind blew straight across the estuary in the shape of a fierce gale and the car rocked as I sat in it! Luckily I had my best brown trousers on and all was safe and well! Actually I had superb views of this bird, the adults being one of my favourite gulls, even if it was in non-breeding plumage. It was very close in to the coach park behind the railway station and I didn't even need to get out of the car. It flew into the gale, keeping it more or less over the same patch of water as the bird dipped and skimmed the surface of the water as it fed, occasionally settling briefly on the sea itself. Beautiful! Pics of this little gem can be seen on Matt's blog. It was still there when I left. As we are experiencing another 'superstorm' at present it could in theory still be around somewhere in the vicinity tomorrow, especially at high tide. Then there was that rather strange adult gull I had brief views of on Tuesday at Mudbank Lane which appeared to be an adult Lesser Black-backed with seemingly pink legs - I shudder to think what it was! More gulls please.........