Back to the joys of gravel pit birding

After spending last week in (mainly) sunny Scilly - more on that in another post - it was back out to Collingham Pits last night. A skein of 110 Pinkies flew over heading NW, and a Green Sand called unseen on Ferry Lane Lake, where there were also nearly 200 Wigeon. However, the main attraction was the gulls. 

Whilst I'm pleased that Ferry Lane Lake seems to be developing as a good roost site, I find roost watching tricky; key features can be difficult to see/interpret, and time is not on your side; indeed, all the interesting gulls appeared as the light failed (or perhaps they just looked interesting in the half-light..??). There were at least 10 'grey-mantled' gulls in with the Lesser Black-backs, of which one was a Herring, and at least 3 were Yellow-legs - the rest were left unassigned in failing light. A juvenile gull was also intriguing, seemingly an LBBG but looking very white-headed with a slender dark bill. Hmm.

White-headed juv gull

White-headed juv gull

3cy Yellow-legged Gull

3cy Yellow-legged Gull

Gulls, gulls, gulls