Rufforth Gull Master Class
Tim Jones, assisted by Chris, Jack and Ollie, lead a very well attended gull demo/field trip this morning at Rufforth. The turnout was one of the highest ever in recent times for a field trip with 21 people including the leaders turning up.
Here is Tim’s summary of the morning:
“A rough start with very few gulls on the airfield and a bitingly cold wind. A juvenile Glaucous Gull just didn’t quite linger long enough for the assembling crowd to see and with few other gulls the decision was made to move round the corner to view the birds from the gateway looking into the wet field just east of the airfield. Here we managed to get sheltered out of the wind and immediately a very large and smart 1w Caspian was picked out for all to enjoy, we then went on to see another 1w and an adult Caspian Gull, a juvenile Glaucous Gull, juvenile and 3w Iceland Gulls, several argentatus (Scandinavian) Herring Gulls, several Lesser Black-backed Gulls and a few odd balls!
Moving back round to the airfield we saw another 2 juvenile Glaucous Gulls and a 2w bird.
Hopefully everyone went away having learnt something new about gulls after a very enjoyable morning studying them.
Final totals
5 Glaucous Gull
2 Iceland Gull
3 Caspian Gull”
Very many thanks to Tim, Ollie, Chris and Jack for sharing their expertise and showing us what exciting possibilities are on our doorsteps.