Hmmmm ...... this looks interesting.It's been a funny ol' week. On Tuesday morning I zipped up to Pilling before work and successfully twitched the Bean Goose in with the couple of thousand Pink-feet still on the saltmarsh at Lane Ends. The Ross's Goose was still there too. Then I put birding on the backburner for the sake of work - honest. So everything was going pretty well, knuckled down on Wednesday but it all went wrong on Thursday. Just about to settle in to a serious bit of writing when the news came through of the reappearance of the adult Ross's Gull on the Fylde. I was in D&G when this gem first appeared so a second chance could not be ignored.
I was at Lytham Moss in no time but no sign of the Ross's - damn! A Marsh Harrier coasting over the distant trees was some compensation but the gull seemed lost, maybe forever. Some hope remained with the news that the Ross's Gull had been photographed by someone early Tuesday morning at Fairhaven though. So I headed to the lake but no luck, in fact hardly any gulls at all.
Ross's Gull, Granny's Bay, Lancs 18th April 2008.
I usually find an excuse for a "Friday Feeling" on a Friday (believe it or not), which usually results in some birding. As today was a Friday and high tide was at a very respectable hour I decided to give the Fairhaven area a go in hope of the Ross's. On arrival at Granny's Bay the tide was well up and there was "very little about" (I almost sound like a proper birder at times). Not much on the lake either and a quick look at the beach at St. Anne's failed to produce anything of note. "One last look at Granny's" I thought as the tide was turning, and unbelievably there, in a corner of the bay near the sea wall was a tiny delicate gull. A (the) superb adult Ross's Gull was sitting on the sea, drifting out into the Ribble Estuary! A few garbled phone calls followed before I lost the bird, but luckily it was relocated and watched until late afternoon in the Lytham area. Great stuff.
