30/12/2014 Moore Nature Reseve

Glaucous Gull:  This would be my third trip in as many weeks to Moore, however on this visit I had more time so spent all day watching the gulls.

After spending two hours at Birchwood Pool I wandered over to Pumphouse Pool where I found a juvenile Iceland Gull, unfortunately not long after I picked it up the bird took off and I was unable to relocate it.

After losing the Iceland Gull I headed over to the upper hide on Pumphouse Pool with the hope of settling in and scanning through the building numbers.

Not long after I arrived Mike Mulholland turned up and it was from this moment that I simply spent the rest of the day chatting away with mike, no gulling, no birding.

I can however tell you some stories about Mike that includes a Frankie Goes to Hollywood T-shirt and Morocco, a lads weekend in Ibiza and a surprise visit from a Leatherback turtle in Conwy!

After we finally stopped gassing we spent some time looking through the gulls when I picked up a nice white winger amongst the flocks.
At first the Glauc in my mind was a bit small, however comparing the birds general size and bill size and next to the local argentatus we concluded it must be a Gluac and not the short legged, short billed, long winged Iceland Gull I spotted earlier.


On my way back I stopped off at Birchwood Pool where the gull numbers were much larger than earlier in the day it was here two young birders told me they just had a juv Gluac, juv Inceland and an adult Med Gull in the past hour or so.

(first two images where digiscoped)