Always leave them wanting less...

.... as a Mr Warhol once said, and in the spirit of shameless over-egging, here's more Little Gull action - from the Brigg this morning, in sunshine and with a brisk south-westerly blowing. It's great having them around.

More Little Gulls

From a couple of days ago - hard to beat and still around in the bay....

Homing closer, tiny dancers

With howling gales persisting but the sun suddenly shining, yesterday morning Amity and I made for a wonderfully deserted Brigg, via the beach and the bay corner. Halfway along the exposed promontory and with the wind smashing the incoming tide against seaweed-covered boulders, a party of Little Gulls - beautiful, dainty, ephemeral to a bird - came gradually closer inshore, dip-feeding in the surf and dancing delicately into the swell.

What else could we do but position ourselves on said boulders, grit our teeth against the elements and enjoy a sublime spectacle as the gulls came ever closer, completely ignoring our unthreatening presence. With sunlight, shaking hands and lens and splattering spray all working against decent photographs, the results are surprisingly passable given the circumstances.... but either way, yet another wonderful experience in the backyard.

Winter fuel

Black-throated Diver ...... 

 
With a lingering hangover from another memorably weird Filey folk club, a free afternoon and five miles of deserted sandy beach effectively outside the front door, there was only one thing for it. Thus, the Mrs and I ambled contentedly along the shore all the way to Speeton Cliffs at the southern end of the bay, enjoying a wealth of wonderful wildlife and an almost complete lack of humankind in the process.

locally rare, remarkably tarty

 
In the bay, a minimum of ten Little Gulls danced above the swell, an omnipresence from the town's seafront southwards; Sanderlings entertained along the tideline, and the requisite cast of Great Crested Grebes, Common Scoters, Red-throated Divers, Shags and others occupied the waves. But a couple of unexpected highlights brightened a pleasantly grey day even further.

 
Unexpectedly, a Common Seal (much the rarer of the two seal species locally) hauled up briefly just in front of us, before thinking better of it and slipping back into the surf; at the very end of the beach, meanwhile, a diver materialised close inshore, clearly a Black-throated (again much the rarer of the three likely species) even with the naked eye, which then proceeded to entertain us until the fading light ushered us homeward bound.

 
Almost two years after moving here, it just seems to get better and better.

Common Seal - far from Common .....

...... and entertaining Amity no end

Little Gull, against a backdrop of the Brigg

Little treasures

After strong south-easterlies there's always a chance of Little Gulls in the bay or off the Brigg, and happily, I came across about seven this morning, of all ages and at all ranges. A couple, however, skirted the shoreline while actively dip-feeding in the surf, and so (despite the very poor light, strong winds and camera shake) here they are - as dainty as marsh terns, yet as hard as skuas, and always a joy to watch.