Yawn

I'm not sure if this Iceland Gull was unimpressed by the ferry coming into Heysham Harbour behind it, or by another couple of birders peering at it from the harbour wall - probably both. It was 12 days previously that I visited this place with Simon and Matthew, and today the gull was in exactly the same place when we arrived as it was then - on the water under one of the "waterfalls" that pour into the harbour from the direction of the nuclear plant. It also flew up and perched in exactly the same place on this concrete pillar.

Birds are often creatures of habit, but what is the appeal of this particular place for a bird that has wandered down from the Arctic? Gulls certainly don't choose their haunts on grounds of aesthetics, there must be plenty of food here for it and not much disturbance either, but for ferries and the odd (sometimes very odd) birder who ventures out to this spot along the high sea wall and past the nuclear reactors. It's in its 3rd Winter plumage, lacking any black on the wing tips, and largely grey and white with just that slightly darker mottling on the chest and neck.

It was the end of a productive birding day in Lancashire with Matt. We had been treated to vast flocks of golden plovers, black-tailed godwits, pink-footed geese and many other waders and wildfowl. We visited Pilling Lane looking for a bird that was in the wrong place at the wrong time, a reported turtle dove that has been consorting with collared doves. It's a bird that should be in Africa at the moment, and even when it arrives to breed in May, we wouldn't expect to see it this far north in NW England. Anyway, we didn't see it - perhaps it was in somebody's back garden enjoying a bit of privacy. It seems it did appear within 15 minutes of us leaving. But that's birding, and if we had tarried there longer we might have missed the perfect view we later had of a hunting barn owl.

The bird list for 2018 moved on to 113.