A short visit to Grafham water this afternoon gave me a few more birding year ticks. I have been staying with my sister in Cambridgeshire and we decided to walk across the dam and see if any waders were feeding along the shoreline.
All along the dam were good numbers of pied wagtails, including juveniles, and amongst them a few yellow wagtails. They flitted to and fro from the shoreline, then up on to the dam wall and back down again. We also spotted a juvenile ringed plover, neither of us having seen one so far this year.
Also along the shoreline at separate locations were a couple of dunlins, in differing stages of changing from their summer plumage.
Returning along the same route, we noticed a couple of gulls sitting on some railings; one was definitely a greater black backed gull, but the other paler with yellow legs. Lesser black backed or yellow legged gull? The plumage seemed too pale for a lesser black backed gull so we determined it must be the yellow legged variety, which again would be a useful year tick. However we did consult some more experienced birders who had also seen it and they confirmed its ID for us.
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