Gulls, gulls everywhere but not a single yella' legged in sight.

Rainton Meadows

That’s it! That’s me and gulls finished! I spent about 2-3 hours today scanning through gulls to look for something interesting and didn’t see anything. However, I did gain more experience with ID’ing some of the commoner gulls and therefore familiarising myself with some of the commoner gulls. Today there was really high numbers of Black-headed Gulls, Herring Gull, and quite a few Great-black backed Gulls. There was also 2c Common Gull amongst them. 1 small (female?) Herring Gull nearly got my excited thinking it was a Ring-billed Gull but closer inspection and I quickly realised it was a Herring Gull. I missed a Lesser-black backed Gull when I went to go and look around Joe’s Pond for the Pintail. I couldn’t see it; this was probably because it had cleared of because of the idiotic fisherman on Joe’s Pond. They where either ignorant or couldn’t read the “NO FISHING” sign that is clearly displayed in the middle of the pond. No sign of the Tawny Owl either so I missed that! Sadly it wasn’t my day today.

I must admit I really enjoyed looking through the gulls hoping to find the Yellow-legged Gull. I have spent a lot of time this winter scanning through gulls but nothing has really stood out that well. If I confess I did go of gulls for a while after missing that Glaucous-winged Gull which I would have loved to have seen but missed by about 2 hours :( Thankfully I am getting back into them and hope to see or find a Glaucous Gull sooner rather than later.

Rare gulls I HAVE seen:
- Ring-billed Gull, Dundee 31/12/2008
- Iceland Gull x3
- Glaucous Gull x1
- Yellow-legged Gull x1

That’s me lot! Lol
Now lets bask in my terrible shot of a Great-black Backed gull from today.

(Great-black backed Gulls)

SIGN THIS PETITION

Please could my followers sign this petition:

http://www.birdlifemalta.org/petition/

This is a petition to "DEMAND THAT MALTA RESPECTS THE EU LAW AND STOP KILLING OF PROTECTED BIRDS"

If you can spread the news so that loads of people can sign it.

I am sure you will sign it and spread the word, Thanks much.

January Review & Beware of Malware

Don’t you just hate Malware! It is a bit like a virus that installs itself onto your computer without your permission, hey I love ICT. I was hit by it last night and have not really been able to use my computer for nearly a day. However technology was no match for the brains of the might Foghorn and I completely got rid of this nasty virus. It was called Antivirus Vista 2010, this software deliberately lies to you and tries to make you believe you have a Trojan horse and they say that you should but there products to fix this problem. They ask for your details, including credit card and they will put the software on to get rid of this “virus”. In actual fact it is a huge con. You DO NOT have a virus at all and they are simply trying to get your details. It has been on the go for about 1 week now and it brand new. So watch out as you might get hit! (Hope not) Screenshot of what it looks like, just incase any of my very kind readers get infected : http://siri.urz.free.fr/log/misc/Antivirus2010.png

January Highlights
But anyhow enough about ICT and computing lets get on with my January review. The year started of well in Orkney, 1st of January bought me Common Buzzard then Kestrel then a nice ringtail Hen Harrier. On the same day I ticked of Raven and some of the birds that are harder to get down here in County Durham. The ferry back to the mainland was good and produced a fine juv Iceland Gull in Stromness harbour. Not much birding was done in January as my friend who I go birding with drives and he was very busy with things that needed doing. However my Dad very kindly took me to see the Black-throated Thrush in Newholme which was fantastic to see. Also a 8 days later my Dad kindly took me to see a fine drake Ring-necked Duck that was down at Teesside, both birds where life ticks. The female Black Redstart at Hartlepool was a life tick for me and the last one for January 2010, a good way for Stew’s Crew to start the year. Three life ticks in total taking me up to 231 for my life list and 229 for my British list.

Owling

A fantastic evening out tonight owl’ing at an undisclosed site. The first bird we had was a 1 Short-eared Owl once it disappeared another one appeared following it. So that was 2 SEO’s and the only ones we had the whole night.


After this I had 1 definite confirmed LEO and what I believe there was another one that disappeared quickly. This meant I saw 2 LEO’s.

Then on the way back home a Barn Owl nearly flew into the window of the car! Thankfully it spotted us and turned itself around at the last minute.

- 2 Short-eared Owl
- 2 Long-eared Owl
- 1 Barn Owl

Not bad, this takes my year list up to 99! 1 more come on!