Call yourself a birder?

Heading from Perth to Roy Bridge for our Winter Gathering. Might as well take a few birds in en-route - Dingwall, Alturlie Point, Ardersier & Nairn, they're all en-route right?

So the Scaup were far too distant at Alturlie Point to pick out a Lesser Scaup, no sign of an Iceland Gull at Ardersier, and couldn't find the King Eider at Nairn, but these three dips are not the cause of my derogatory heading for today's blip. That honour goes to my first port of call Dingwall where as you can see I found the Ring-billed Gull.

I parked up at Tescos and walked round to the pond where the Ring-bill is often sighted. Knowing RCB needed a photo for today I snapped the Common Gull that was on the ice, ignored the black-heads then scanned through the larger gulls - no sign of the Ring-bill. Wandered round to the Library / Academy, no sign there either although I must admit to not scanning too intently as the Academy pupils were on a break and hanging around outside with binoculars was open to misinterpretation.

Retuned to Tescos, bought lunch took a final drive past the Library / Academy and still no sign, decided to give the pond another go, but there'd obviously been some disturbance (people using the park for walking their dogs or taking the kids for a walk, or just wandering round - completely antisocial behaviour disturbing the poor gulls!!), anyway there was only a single gull at the pond. Got the binoculars on it and bingo! It was the Ring-billed Gull, snap, snap, snap. As you can see I got some decent shots and I headed off quite happy with myself.

So why the derogatory heading? Well that was saved for the evening when I was sorting the photos - The Common Gull that I'd snapped at the very start of the day as a back-up for RCB. Well it wasn't a Common Gull it was the Ring-bill. Doh!