I was pleased with this sequence of Glaucous Gull pictures so I thought I’d share them. Taken at Sea Palling on Easter Sunday, one of four present amongst the thousands of other gulls. This is a 1st winter bird, showing considerable fading to it’s ‘coffee’ coloured juvenile plumage. Glaucous Gulls are rare winter visitors to England from Iceland & Scandinavia. They are slightly bigger than our familiar Herring Gull, as can be seen from the first couple of photos and always have white primary wing feathers. They can be told from the very similar and equally rare Iceland Gull by size, structure and, in young birds, the reduced area of black on the bill-tip. ‘Glaucs’ are typically scruffy individual, found picking through urban waste on refuse tips or seen roosting on inland reservoirs, so it was nice to see them in their maritime environment in good winter/spring sunshine. Four birds at a single location is pretty exceptional.

And finally a flight shot of a second ‘1st winter’ individual showing rather more of it’s coffee coloured plumage

Hopefully the next birds to feature in this blog will be spring migrants!