As detailed in the
last post, I'd spent the working week guiding at Spurn Bird Obs, returning late Friday night; Saturday and Sunday would need some serious attention paid to desk-based work - but we all need fresh air and birds to focus our working minds, right? And it
is late October on the Yorkshire coast....
Thus, a 'quick' session on Brigg seemed reasonable, and as always at this time of year, it was a joy. Redwings and Starlings battling in over the waves, a Lapland Bunting trilling low and in off the sea, Rock Pipits and Siskins on the move, two Tundra Bean Geese south over the sea (as well as 470 Pinks) - all quite enough, but the icing (cough) on the cake was this truly stunning Nearctic
Larus.
Approaching from the north-east over a tumultuous, washing-machine surf over the Brigg, it wheeled closer, gave me the death stare and headed south - but not before kindly turning around, dropping onto the Brigg, and resting up for a while. Iceland Gulls are proper scarce here at Filey, and indeed are less than annual in recent years, and so any encounter with them is a special one - and even better when they're so accommodating.
