Manky gulls #1

…being the first in an occasional series.

I really should be saving this for the depths of winter. And indeed, it’ll probably resurface then, when times are hard and the blogging’s not easy. However, have just been out for a sortie to some promisingly repulsive muddy pools on the lookout for a rare wader, only to find a selection of Lerwick’s finest manky gulls. And only single Redshank and Dunlin on the wader front. The Dunlin looking rather uncertain as the many young Great Black-backed and Herring Gulls were busy yopping down unidentifiable calidrid-sized lumps of gull fodder, presumably scavenged from the nearby landfill site.

So, for want of anything better to do, I took a couple of portraits of particularly minging specimens. One swallowing what appeared to be an entire filleted salmon carcase, and another drenched in purest green.

Meanwhile, what better to banish wader woe than going to another birding blog I stumbled across recently, and have been enjoying enormously in recent days. It’s the well-written and amusing Wanstead Birder. Try it – you might like it. As much as gulls love bathing in slime and then eating something decomposing. In other words, a lot.