Sutton Bingham - Tue 22 Jul

Not much chance recently to get out and about due to various reasons, none of which I will bore you with. The few flying visits I have made to Sutton Bingham over the past couple of weeks have failed to produce much other than Common Sandpipers! A quick visit in the morning produced three juvenile type Mandarin on West Pool and an adult Peregrine on a pylon at the southern end.
However, this afternoon whilst scanning through the four hundred plus large gulls gathered I came across a Great Black-backed Gull, this bird was moulting to second winter plumage and was a beast of a gull...a really nice bird and by no means an annual visitor to the reservoir. The following photos show the size of this bird compared to a Mallard and a Black-headed Gull....what a monster!

 

 

The only other bird of note today was a Little Egret.
Sutton Bingham year list for 2014 now at 95 species.