Iceland Gull in Staffordshire

The gull roost at Chasewater, Staffordshire.

With an earlier Glaucous Gull under my belt I was hoping to add a further trio of gull species to my day's tally including another 'white-winger'.  Upon arriving at the bitterly cold moonscape of Chasewater it was not too long before a third winter Iceland Gull was picked up bobbing around amongst the numerous Herring Gulls and Lesser Black-backed Gulls and the odd numbers of Great Black-backed Gulls.  It was at this point I was joined by some familiar local faces - Snapper Richards, Phil Locker and Dan Pointon all appeared in order to help sift throughs the steadily increasing raft of avian scavengers.  Despite their help though all we managed between us was an adult Yellow-legged Gull. There was no sign of either the adult Caspian Gull that Snapper had found earlier in the afternoon nor the regular adult Mediterranean Gull that sometimes appears in the roost.

Other species of interest included an immature Peregrine harassing the Lapwing flock and a small group of 6 Goosander.