Christine's walking & birds blog

The unusually mild weather we're having was today accompanied by wind and rain. I stood on West Terrace watching gulls drift along from the river spit towards the harbour. They were mostly herring gulls with a few great black-backed - while two black-headed gulls caught what light there was in the murk and looked quite beautiful. They're so common down south, it's easy to forget what smart gulls they actually are.

And then something different. Something large, broad-winged, flying ponderously or gliding effortlessly on the wind - a glaucous gull. It turned and passed me again, and then went out over the loch where I lost it. It looks like a first-winter bird.

  
I searched for it around the harbour with no luck and eventually went home, beaten by the worsening light and the persistent rain.