Gulls and Godwits at Crossness today

Another day locally, and thankfully there seems to be a bit of change each day at the moment. After doing a bit of work in the morning and waiting for Karen to come back from a lunch/brunch thing with her friends, it wasn't til mid afternoon that we headed out. All tactical admittedly, as I knew it was an incoming tide early evening at Crossness.

adult summer Mediterranean Gull, Crossness 6th July 2014

The outfall delivered a second Med Gull in as many days - this time, a nice adult summer. Copious amounts of Black-headed Gulls were checked, with little else of note unfortunately though the feeding Common Terns (including a couple of juveniles) were pretty smart. Also after just a Redshank last weekend, it seems as though wader passage is starting a bit more now as there were 18 Icelandic Black-tailed Godwits on the foreshore today, including this orange flagged bird ringed in the Gulf of Morbihan, northwest France.

Icelandic Black-tailed Godwits - including this French ringed bird on the right. Eighteen of them were present on the Thames foreshore this evening

Added to this, there were a couple of other bits that almost made me heave - the 2 hybrid Ruddy x Common Shelducks from yesterday were still about by the jetty, while a couple of Egyptian Geese had ventured onto the Thames foreshore (the first time I'd seen them here - normally they're confined to Southmere).

A vulgar creature plodding around in the mud.

So that's it, another weekend done. Just a couple more until that long summer holiday starts, and I can't wait for another six long weeks of birding.