4 Yellow-legged Gull on Tresco

A day on Tresco and I had up to 4 juvenile Yellow-legged Gull including this one

  Despite the heatwave continuing and very little rain, a visit to Tresco today and there is still no mud on the Abbey Pool. So no waders and my attention was switched to goin through the hundreds of gulls coming into bath on the pool. On arrival I immediately got onto a juvenile Yellow-legged Gull circling the pool before flying off south. This was the first of the 4 juvenile Yellow-legged Gull I had in the area. It wasn't until I returned to the Abbey Pool some two hours later, after seeing the Lapwing, 1 Green Sandpiper, 8 Green and 3 Redshank, 2 Pochard, 3 Little Egret and 10 Grey Heron on the Great Pool, that I got two YLG. I picked out a juvenile on my first scan bathing on the far side. This was a larger individual and flew a lot closer before heading towards Sea Carn. At the same time while it was on the pool, another large juvenile YLG flew straight through towards the Great Pool. It wasn't long until I made the few minutes walk from the pool and I was scanning the gulls at sea carn and spotted a smaller juvenile YLG on the beach with over 500 large gulls including a single juvenile Mediterranean Gull. 

Number 1 juv YLG

  

Number 2 was a bulky juv YLG While this individual was bathing on the Abbey Pool, number 3 YLG was another large juvenile, that flew overhead towards the Great Pool.

Number 4 juv YLG was smaller and had less markings on the tail and rump 

Juvenile Mediterranean Gull at sea Carn

Up to 30 Black-headed Gull on Tresco

Little Egret

Juvenile Green Sandpiper on the weed of the Great Pool

Female House Sparrow

Not many records of Comma Butterfly on Tresco

My first Migrant Hawker of the year was this female at the Abbey Pool

Sharon Van Etten (born February 26, 1981) is an American singer-songwriter^[2][3] and actress from New Jersey.

Yellow-legged Gulls on Scilly

Yesterday I had this Juvenile Yellow-legged Gull at Morning Point briefly before flying off towards Gugh

 The heatwave continues and today I made another visit to Tresco. After over an hour of searching through the 100s of large gulls on the rocks at Sea Carn, I made the short walk to the Abbey Pool where on my first scan I picked out 2 juvenile Yellow-legged Gull bathing. It wasn't long until they flew off towards Sea Carn. There were 5 Pochard including 3 juvenile also on the pool, a single Greenshank and the first juvenile Lesser black-backed Gull. Mid afternoon I returned to Sea Carn and got one of the YLG or was it another? Feeding in the shallows were also single Dunlin and Curlew, 3 Whimbrel and Mediterranean Gull,, 10 Ringed Plover and 4 Sandwich Tern including 2 juvenile. 

My first scan on the Abbey Pool and I got these 2 juvenile Yellow-legged Gull on the far side of the pool/

I had this juvenile Yellow-legged Gull at nearby Sea Carn over two hours later but it could of easily been one of the Abbey Pool individuals  

5 Pochard at the Abbey Pool were disturbed by low flying helicopters 

The first returning Dunlin was with 10 Ringed Plover at Sea Carn

This Great black-backed Gull didn't go unnoticed while carrying a crab

Back on St Mary's at Porthloo there were 6 Mediterranean Gull including single adult and 1st summer and 4 juvenile.

  Yesterday after work, I had a quick look at Morning Point and on the rocks below was a juvenile Yellow-legged Gull. It circled before flying off towards Gugh. Shortly afterwards 2 Mediterranean Gull came in briefly. At Porth Hellick there were single Green and Common Sandpiper and 3 Greenshank

Juvenile Yellow-legged Gull

1st summer Mediterranean Gull

Green Sandpiper

Common Sandpiper

Cormorant

Wood Pigeon

Male House Sparrow

Ibrahim Maalouf (Arabic: ابراهيم معلوف‎; born 5 December 1980) is a French-Lebanese trumpet player and teacher, composer and arranger. He was born in Beirut, Lebanon, and now lives in Paris, France. Maalouf met producer Marc-Antoine Moreau, who introduced him to the cellist Vincent Segal. It was the beginning of a long and fruitful series of encounters. Amadou & Mariam, Matthieu Chedid, Lhasa de Sela, Angel Parra, Jeanne Cherhal, Arthur H, Marcel Khalifé...between 2000 and 2007, Ibrahim performed with many internationally famous singers and musicians, discovering the musical trade while exploring his own sound. His last great partnership was with his friend, the French singer Vincent Delerm, who asked him to accompany him on a promotion tour for his album Les Piqûres d’Araignées, a tour that ended in June 2007. In November 2008, Maalouf played in the opera "Welcome to the Voice" at the Chatelet Theatre in Paris. Composed by Steve Nieve (Elvis Costello’s keyboardist) and directed by Muriel Teodori. On this occasion, Maalouf encountered on stage various artists including Elvis Costello, Sylvia Schwartz and Sting, who played the lead role in this performance. Sting asked him to play on one of the title songs of his October 2009 album. Maalouf then toured again with Vincent Delerm (January 2009) in a smaller formation where he derived a lot of pleasure from playing piano, wurlitzer, vibraphone, synthesizer, drums and trumpet, while finishing his second album, planned for the Fall 2009.

Unusual species seen for this time of year!

These included Coal Tit, 2 Lapwing, Black Redstart, Lesser Redpoll and this Common Gull that I had yesterday on Tresco. Also yesterday on the latter island, I saw a female Pintail and the Merlin that has decided to summer on Scilly! Also summering, that I've seen on and off at work throughout june, is a Jackdaw. 

 Yesterday I found myself on Tresco and in the hot sun, birds of note included, 2 Little Egret, 3 Swift, Common Sandpiper, Buzzard, single Pintail and Pochard, Mediterranean and Common Gull. On Castle Down there were a family of 5 Ringed Plover and the summering Merlin put an appearance and was later seen on St Mary's. Up to 30 Black-headed Gull were on the Abbey Pool and with no mud exposed, a Black-tailed Godwit flew through but shortly afterwards I relocated it on South Beach. I also had an Emperor Dragonfly on the Great Pool and nearby, a first for me, a migrant Helophilus trivitatus Hoverfly.

No surprise to see this Black-tailed Godwit on Tresco

No sign of last months male Pintail but I did have this female on the Great Pool. As there had been no report of a female up until now, is it possible that there might of been attemped breeding on Tresco? 

What I wasn't exspecting to see was this 1st summer Common Gull here with a 1st summer Mediterranean Gull at Pentle Bay.

There were also some 30 Black-headed Gull including 12 juveniles

Oystercatcher

Meadow Pipit

Goldfinch

By the woodpile, a pair of Stonechat were busy feeding young

At the end of June, an unusual record for this time of year were an adult and juvenile Lapwing at Porth Hellick where today both birds showed well in front of the hides. There were also 3 Greenshank and singles of Common and Green Sandpiper Later on at Morning Point, I had an adult and 2 different 1st summer Mediterranean Gull from the individual I had on Tresco before. There maybe up to 6 different Mediterranean Gull on Scilly at the moment.

Moorhen have bred in good numbers on Porth Hellick

A Swallow collecting mud to reinforce it's nest.

   Highlights in the last three weeks of June included a Coal Tit seen by Nigel Bray at Trenowth, 29th,  Honey Buzzard seen by Bobby 'Dazzler' Dawson over town and later seen by other observers, 27th, and the Red Kite was last seen over Content, 23rd. Joe Penders Paligics produced single Wilson's Petrel, 14th and 18th.
  On the 1st July the highest number of 9 Emperor Dragonflies were recorded on Scilly. Ritchie Aston had four at Porth Helick and I had five at Lower Moors.

This cracking flight shot by Joe Pender of a juvenile Yellow-legged Gull was also seen out on one of Joe's Pelagics, 27th.

This is 'Sandy' the juvenile House Sparrow. First spotted by Joe Pender in his garden and then later it moved down road to Big Al's garden. I took these shots next door in the Catholic church garden

And look at 'Dave' who follows me home or just waits for me to return from doin a taxi!

  Imad, who works with Birdlife International and I spent a lot of time with in Palestine, March just gone, posted this video of one of his closet friends home being demolished by the Israeli Government yesterday!! You visit Israel you help fund all this and children as young as 6 to 17 years old being put in gages or prison or killed in cold blood for throwing a stone!! Lets repeat that, children killed for throwing a stone!! You got no way of getting away from this. You might not be aware but you visit Israel you help fund all this. One day a family is trying to get by in all the conflict surrounding them and then you discover that your the next target out of thousands that have already been demolished and like 100,000s of other Palestinians, your left homeless! Imagine yourself coming back to no home because a state 'the oppressor' decided to bring it to the ground! If your thinking of visiting Israel or making another visit, please watch this footage and question yourself and think what you are supporting by goin to the state of Israel? 


If your thinking of visiting Israel or making another visit, please watch this footage and question yourself and think what you are supporting by goin to this aparthied state as Mandela grandson called it? He also said that the aparthied Israel is worse than it ever was in aparthied South Africa!