Oare again

Yup. Out to enjoy some sun rather than all the stuff I should have been doing. It seems that the Bonaparte's Gull is in the area again. Now you may have heard about his retreat from Moscow, immortalised by Beethoven with his third symphony and Tchaikovsky's 1812, but you probably didn't know he had a gull. It has a black head and hangs around with black-headed gulls. Probably a good thing that the black-headed gull doesn't have a black head. It's also smaller, only slightly bigger than a little gull which is cool as long as there is a little gull around for comparison. Anyways, I didn't see it but there were lots of other interesting birds around including more than a dozen egrets, loads of godwits and I also saw a snipe for the first time (or the first time I've noticed and identified one). The swan and cygnets seem to be doing well and there were a couple of herons. It seems that I'd just missed a fly-past by a marsh harrier and this is what lifted the birds and my new-found friend suggested that this is what caused the Bonaparte's to high-tail off to somewhere friendlier - probably out on the estuary as the tide fell.