Laughing Gull on Tresco

27th July 2022

Unfortunately, all pics of this adult Laughing Gull and the other species I observed on Tresco are all blurred. It turned out, I had a faulty SD card. However, you can still see clearly what it is and it was a corker!!

I was given the afternoon off and with the calm conditions, you can guess what I did and it payed off. Although I kayaked across to Tresco yesterday evening, where I saw the usual species, 3 juvenile Yellow-legged Gull and the Wood Sandpiper, I found myself parking at the South Beach again. On the Abbey Pool were 3 Common Sandpiper and the Wood Sandpiper but the SE of the Great pool, it held a personal record of 16 Common Sandpiper split up into two flocks of eight.

This Wood Sandpiper on the Abbey pool has been present for a week now

One of the 5 Yellow-legged Gull that I had on the Abbey Pool

I found Rob Lambert in the Swarovski Hide and when I told him about the sandpipers, he left me alone in the hide. As it was pretty quiet, I soon caught up with Rob at the SE end of the Great Pool where there were now 2 Dunlin with only 11 Common Sandpiper. A few minutes later we were scanning the gulls at the Abbey Pool when Rob said calmly ‘Spider’ and he pointed to his scope. ‘Bloody ell Rob!’ He had gone and refound his adult summer plumage Laughing Gull that he had very briefly in flight past St Martins seventeen days ago! A cracker that was havin a good ole bath for a few minutes before flying off south. Rob had a boat to catch and I wanted to relocate the beauty. There were 100s of large gulls spread out on the South Beach and nearby rocks. A quick scan and no sign. Ten minutes later, I was standing on the beach to the west of South Beach and I spotted the Laughing Gull flying towards me from St Mary’s. It flew in and dropped onto South Beach with the other gulls where I got close up views as it started to preen. I put the news out but it wasn’t long until it was up again and flew over towards the Abbey Pool where I lost it as I was lying down low in the heather overlooking the South Beach. No sign of the Laugher but there were now 5 juvenile Yellow-legged Gull were present on the Abbey Pool.

The Laughing Gull flying out from the Abbey Pool with a blurred Yellow-legged Gull

I’ve observed 100s of Laughing Gull on the other side of the Atlantic and been lucky to see ten on Scilly, but out of all of them this is the first individual that I’ve seen in full summer plumage.

The Shoveler had halved from 12 a few days ago to 6 on the Great Pool

There were smaller numbers of Willow Warbler than a few days ago knocking around the Pool Road area still

And it appears to also be less numbers of Reed Warbler as well

An hour later I was drifting close inshore to the South Beach and in with over 200 Sanderling was a different summer plumage Knot from last week. Also, the first returning Wheatear was on the rocks. It wasn’t long until I reached Stoney Island and noisy Sandwich Tern totalled over 80. Unfirtunly, most of them were adults. There were also 5 Common Sandpiper giving me a grand total of 21 altogether not including the three on the Abbey Pool.

Also came across this male Stonechat while trying to relocate the Laughing Gull and look what it’s got? The first confirmed record of Deaths-head Hawkmoth breeding on Tresco!

Two days ago I had a juvenile Yellow-legged Gull in the garden followed by just before mid-night, while brushing my teeth in the bathroom, a small vocal flock of Black-tailed Godwit flew north over the garden. Before all this though, after 2 Cory Shearwater were seen off Peninnis the day before, I found myself at Porth Hellick Down from 06.30-10.00. As a result totals included 57 Cory, 1 Great, 3 Sooty, 150 Manx Shearwater, 60 Gannet and 2 Kittiwake.

Did BBC NorthWest Edit Out Support For Striking Workers?

This is the response tweet from professor Sarah Marie Hall who totally supports the RMT strikes but the BBC NW decided to make sure that they edited that part out and make out that she was against it

Why have you misrepresented what I said, @BBCNWT? I was asked if I supported the @RMTunion strikes (YES), why (CoL, safety, right2strike) but you decided to only include me saying I was affected by the strikes. This is not OK and I would never have participated on those terms.

Still trust the BBC? In an interview with Professor Sarah Marie Hall BBC Northwest seemed to have edited out comments of support for the RMT Union strike action. Sarah later went on Twitter to complain about what may be either a deliberate or accidental edit. Which do you think is more likely?

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Jul 29, 2022

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