Saturday 14 March 2015

Lawks! A Glaucs!

The morning 'getting-ready-for-work' routine has continued to be interrupted by Snipe-watching, as these delightful waders are still frequenting the paddock below the garden.

To our great benefit, their normally perfect camouflage doesn't work so well in a tussocky pasture!

But they were upstaged the other day, when the field over the road was visited by a less than normal gull. It was quite large, but strikingly pale, so not one of the usual suspects. This was enough encouragement to have me scurrying for a bird ID book.



It's an immature Glaucous Gull, a Winter visitor to Orkney.

Another interesting effect illustrated in the photos, which were taken about five minutes apart, is the morning moment when the weather changes, early sunshine followed by a dull day.

2 comments:

Martin said...

So Glaucus gulls only stand up when the sun is shining...? like cows.

Imperfect and Tense said...

I think that the sample size is probably too small to draw such a broad conclusion. Perhaps I need to secure funding for a research trip to the Arctic...