1 step forwards, 2 steps back

a bit of an up & down weekend so it was. Very calm both mornings so was hoping for at least a bit of local migration, if no stuff from further afield. But got nowt in the end. Have spent the last 2 weekend scouring de patch for stock doves - checking every woodpigeon - immensely dull. This has relevance to later in this sorry tale.

Yesterday i spent ages watching some trees cos i thought I'd seen a spot fly at distance. It never reappeared. Immensely dull.

Then I got home and found this on the lake

a yellow-legged gull yesterday (allegedly)

Exactly! Clearly an obvious yellow-legged gull! Except they all flushed and then i got on an LBB and then got confused, which I still am. Yellow-legged gull would be a patch tick, and, as I am ultra-squeaky-clean when it comes to me patch list, I don't think I can have this as I don't know any of the features. Except it looked like a dark-backed herring gull with yellow legs and a big beak. So I don't know. Its in the "Pending" file, although Big Gav (who once kind of partook in the Golden Mallard challenge, factfans) was threatening to send the boys round if I claim it - he knows about gulls, you see.

Anyway, the upshot and tremendous climax to this long & harrowing tale of woe is that whilst I was dicking around trying to scope the gull, 2 stock doves flew thru the scope! Year tick! Whoop! No more looking at pigeons for the rest of the year! SCORE!!!!!