3 yellow-legged Gull on Tresco

I had up to 3 Yellow-legged Gull at the Tresco Abbey Pool including this 3rd winter.

  Two days ago I made a visit to Tresco in the dull murky weather and the first birds of note were 3 adult Mediterranean Gull in the channel as the boat pulled into New Grimbsy. On land, walking along Pool Road, I found 3 Bullfinch that showed very well. At the Great Pool there were 3 Pochard, 50+Gadwall, 60+Coot, 2 female Shoveler, 2 Peregrine and a single female Pintail. 

Of all the Bullfinch I've observed on Scilly during this influx autumn, by far these 3 birds, 2 female and a male, gave the best views so far 

Female Pintail

  I arrived at the Abbey Pool and immediately found a female Goldeneye in the center. The gulls were streaming in, only staying briefly to wash and preen, before flying out again. I stayed there for a good two hours observing the gulls and all the time there were 100-150 on the deck. In that time it payed off with first 2 argentatus Herring Gull. I've only seen a few on this race on the islands. Then a strange looking adult Lesser-black backed Gull caught my eye as it was darker than the rest of the LBBG but the wings were partially albino. This was followed by 3 Yellow-legged Gull. The first was an adult and by the smaller size I would say that this is a different adult to the one I had a few days ago at Porthcressa. A 2nd winter came in shortly afterwards, followed by a 3rd winter. I'm lucky if I see one a year on Scilly and now I've had four different birds in the space of three days! A male Pintail flew in from the south with 5 Mallard and all them joined the 40+Teal and 20+Mallard already present on the water.
  I only had time to do the two pools and surrounding area and other birds of interest included 10 Chiffchaff, 7 Little Egret, 1 Firecrest and while I was at the Abbey Pool, I heard a redpoll sp a few times.
  Returning home, as the rib pulled into the harbour, the Red-breasted Mergenser and 2 Black-necked Grebe were diving inbetwwen the boats. I got a text from Darren Mason telling me he had the Red-throated Diver between Gugh and Morning Point. Also, Nigel Hudson had a Siberian Chiffchaff at Trench Lane.

  The day before Higgo and I joined 'Rocky' Robin and we all decided to scan from Innisidgen and McFardlands Down as it was pretty calm out there. We didn't really see much but it was good to see the first returning Slavonian Grebe of the winter from the former site. From the latter site we relocated the female Eider and from both sites we had 20+Great Northern Diver.

  On St Agnes Graham Gordon has had 2 Bullfinch and a single Short-eared Owl while at the same time, Darren had another Short-eared Owl on Gugh

This female Goldeneye is only the sixth I've seen on Scilly and always kept it's distance

An adult and near adult argentatus Herring Gull came in for a wash and preen

  

This partially albino Lesser-black backed Gull came into the pool very briefly 

 3 Yellow-legged Gulls came in including from the top an adult, 2nd winter and 3rd winter. 

Throughout the two hours I was at Abbey Pool the totals of gulls coming in included, 200+Lesser and 7-800 Greater-black backed, 800+Herring, 3 Yellow-legged, 50+Black-headsed and 2 adult Common Gull.

This male Pintail arrived from the south with 5 Malled

Just before dark I went out to the front of Star Castle and as usual there was Dave, now in her forth winter, waiting for me to feed her.

The wizard of the 12 stringer. I saw this band live over ten year ago at Hotel Cafe in California. The following days I also saw live in the Hollywood area, Ben Harper, Pete Townsend, Alexi Murdock, Jackson Browne, John Trudell, Josh Ritter, Kris Kristofferson amd Willie Nelson.