Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Ringstone Res'r

Spent 2 hours or so yesterday evening at Ringstone with Nick D and John B mainly checking through 3,000+ gulls feeding in the surrounding fields following the farmers silage collection activities. The majority of gulls were Black-headed including a number of juveniles, with a lesser amount of Common Gulls, mostly adults (150+?) and c40 or more Lesser-Black backed Gulls. I have never seen this number of gulls in Calderdale since the landfill sites closed at Shroggs and Blackley!
With this amount of gulls there was always a chance of a Med or Herring or Yellow-legged Gull but we were not able to find anything unusual, though one 1st summer large gull that didn't look quite right for L B B G did not give good enough views to question it's possible i d .
The gulls should be around for a few days so it's well worth a check through with the scope, thought the farming operations look to be nearly completed.

2 Curlew >W
2 Common Sandpipers
c114 Lapwing
5 G C Grebes (including 1 juvenile)
Pair of Tufted Duck
1 f Peregrine over high put all the gulls up for a while
2 Pied Wagtails >W
1 Meadow Pipit
1 Kestrel
Some Linnets and quite a few Swallows around

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