19/01/2019 Winwick Road, Warrington

Iceland Gull: This bird as been eluding me for the past few years. I have fond memories of chasing it across the town, from Tesco car park to the roof of Matalan and each time I dipped!
I even took Dawn with me once witch didn't go down too well, but nothing a McDonald's couldn't sort out.
Top local birder John Tymon found the bird last weekend loafing on the grassy field in front of Warrington Collage and reappeared yesterday afternoon on the grassy pitch in front of Decathlon.
This adult bird has been returning to Warrington for its 6th winter from it's Breeding grounds in Arctic Greenland.

Iceland gulls typically breed in the far north of Greenland that's a 2000 mile journey, a long, long way!
This morning I met up with Neil Wilcox and set off in search of the pure white gull, we checked its usual haunts, the grassy fields around the college, the playing fields of Orford park and the area around Decathlon.



For a long while I wasn't holding out too much hope, well until we bumped in to Liverpool birder Steve T. We were catting away when Steve spotted the white winged gull flying over Decathlon.
Here we got some good views as it flew around the area and perched upon the nearby Premier Inn hotel.

I was thrilled, after years of dipping I finally got some decent views of this local celebrity.