A visit to Frainslake beach and nearby Bluckspool beach this morning on the ebbing tide produced 27 Grey Plovers feeding on the Pole. Among the small number of gulls resting on the beach there was an intriguing colour-ringed adult Herring (CORRECTION!) Caspian Gull left leg yellow X290 which we have not seen before, but David Astins has recorded it over at the Gann previously in Nov. this year and in Nov. 2020 and also by the late Sam Baxter at Newport back in July 2017. It was great to be able to view the Blog archive for previous sightings information - a very useful resource!
We could not get close enough to it, even with a telescope, but thanks to decent light and a reasonably good camera plus telephoto lens we managed to take a few photos from about 300 metres away. Considerable enlargements of the images later, enabled the ring inscription to be confirmed. The details have been reported anyway, to add to the sightings history.
A kestrel was hunting inland and a few choughs were feeding in the dune grassland but, overall, it was generally fairly quiet on the coast there today.
