Black Eyed Gulls

black eyed gulls ~ regaining summer plumage

We completed the Big Garden Birdwatch today, with 6yo acting as an excellent spotting and recording assistant. I'd been a bit pessimistic as I had a sense that there were fewer birds about this winter, but we ended up seeing most of what are regulars in the garden.

For the record the count was:

Blackbird - 3
Blue Tit - 2
Carrion Crow - 4
Chaffinch - 1
Collared Dove - 4
Dunnock - 1
Goldfinch - 2
Great Tit - 2
House Sparrow - 5
Magpie - 3
Robin - 1
Starling - 25
Wren - 1

Looking back at last year's record the main changes have been more Starlings (+9), a big drop in Chaffinches (-8). Didn't spot any Wood Pigeon, Geenfinch or Cole Tit this year, whereas the Dunnock and Robin weren't recorded last year.

Black-headed Gulls didn't feature in the count, although some did fly past, and we could see the raft of 60-80 that normally hangs about on the moor.

These ones came from an afternoon trip to Yeadon Tarn, which is a popular spot for the little ones to pedal and scoot around while admiring the ducks, boats and aeroplanes (it's immediately next to Leeds-Bradford Airport).

Most of the tarn had a skin of ice, although it was three degrees today. The gulls seemed to prefer the ice to the water, and I thought this group made a nice arrangement. They're nicely showing the black smudges that are the start of the restoration to glossy black green heads in the summer.

eleven gulls ~ a skating

Update: As a record for myself as much as anything, here's a less serious photo that I posted today from the Big Garden Birdwatch. Thanks to a retweet from the RSPB on Twitter this has now been viewed as many times as all my other pictures on Flickr combined (which admittedly was not saying much.)