Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Local birding - Glaucous Gull - 4th Dec 2007.

Decided to visit Fishmoor Res at first light to see which direction the 1stw Glauc would head off in; east towards Whinney Hill Tip, Altham or west towards Withnell Landfill Site off the A675 at M65 Jcn3, SD639239. I located the Glauc on the roosting roof at 07:45 (See above videograb), in thoroughly miserable drizzly conditions and it was not until 08:10 that it flew straight into the murk giving me no definate indication of flight direction, but a hunch that it had flown west.

I then left it until early afternoon before visiting Withnell Landfill and succeeded in locating the Glauc in an adj field where it remained for 25 mins with only a single Herring Gull for company in that particular field. A local Falconer, hired twice weekly by the owners of the site 'Biffa', appeared and duly spooked all Gulls onsite.


The next sighting of the Glauc was back on the factory roof at Fishmoor Res, c15:40 -dusk, but was largely out of sight. It appeared to have flown directly onto the roof instead of pre-roosting on the water first causing fellow East Lancs birders Bill Berry, Bob Ashworth and Tony Bennett to dip unfortunately. Bob & Bill Berry also had an adult Med Gull.