Birthday Caspians

So today is my birthday, so what does one do on ones birthday? Go to the tip to look at gulls!

Went down to Rufforth this afternoon and soon found a field with loads of gulls (5,000+) near the tip. After about an hour of scanning through them, I picked out this beauty!

Stunning 1w Caspian Gull, nice neat small bird so probably a female. Not the biggest bill I've ever seen on one, but the feather work was pristine! Watched it for about 15 mins then all the gulls flew off. Awesome birthday present! At this point Andy, Ollie and Chris arrived and we went to the airfield to try and scan through the gulls there when Andy picked out this bird

Another Caspian Gull! This one an adult, which I think are trickier to pick out than 1w birds, but neverless after about 20 mins watching it we were happy it was a Caspian.

Whilst we were watching it it did the diagnostic? albatross call. I'd never seen this before so was really cool to see, tried to get video of it but didn't, however here's some that I found on Youtube showing what we saw, although it wasn't as aggressive as these birds it did do the dipped head wings open then head back over mantle call.








All in all a pretty successful day, add in a male Merlin, a calling Green Sand and a flock of 18 Pinks and it was an awesome day!