For one reason or another, I managed to lose the 'bug' in 2013 and totally phased out of dashing across the country chasing rare birds and even found it difficult to motivate myself to see good birds in Sussex. I have been enjoying birding local sites in the minimal time my job allows in the hope of finding a goodie...all this changed when news broke of a small influx of Ivory Gulls into the country in mid-December, a bird that I had always wanted to see....the dream became reality when one of these beauties settled at Patrington Haven in East Yorkshire, was offered a space in the car and had to go...just had to do it! We arrived at first light after leaving sleeping Pulborough at 2am and soon received news that the bird was still present...we trudged along the track dodging the large puddles to the area where 50 or so birders had already gathered...the light was dim and was blowing a gale, my excitement was soon dashed when a passing birder announced that the bird had been down for a feed and flew out high and far into the estuary! We reached the crowd and was soon relieved as clapped eyes on the Ivory Gull as it perched on some rocks. Good scope views were had and high fives were shared..we had seen our quarry! The Herring Gull's were not letting the Ivory Gull settle and the bird was flying around a fair bit, before heading out around the nearest bank and doubling back and headed towards us crowd on the bank, the bird flew towards us getting closer and closer to the point that I just dropped my bins from my eyes and just watched the Ivory Gull float past me in slow-motion...I didn't even reach for the camera as was just enjoying the views and the light was too poor anyhow at this stage...maybe the Ivory Gull was coming down to feed, but soon decided to head back out into the estuary and eventually land on some rocks where it seemed to spend much of it's time. The Ivory Gull never did come as close again whilst we were there, perhaps it was just the pure volume of people that put it off, or just wasn't hungry, the bird gave excellent views throughout and was occasionally observed surfing the tideline with it's legs dangling down, was almost like watching a large white Leach's Petrel at times the poor photo below kind of illustrates this flying behaviour!
Probably some of the worst photo's of this particular Ivory Gull published but as we saw it
The general area was alive with birds, with spectacular flocks of waders including Knot and Golden Plover, to which a Peregrine was quite happy to spook quite often. After spending the best part of 2 hours watching my first ever Ivory Gull, we decided to leave as Gordon was keen to try for the Parrot Crossbill's in Nottinghamshire, it was one of those occasions where it would have been nice to see it come down to the rotting fish and get some decent pics, but that very close fly-by will live with me for a very long time...mission completed!
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