Ben Macdonald
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24 FEBRUARY: DORSET DELIGHTS

2/27/2018

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​08:30-09:30:  Ferrybridge, Dorset.
In freezing winds I waited at the causeway between Weymouth and Portland for the arrival of a Ross’s Gull.  An enterprising visitor from the pack ice of North America, this extremely rare gull is, unusually for a gull, appealing to a wider audience – dainty, rosy and elegant in shape.  The species is also notorious for wandering around, and news soon arrived it was somewhere else – at Lodmoor.  By the time we arrived there, it had flown off.  Ferrybridge yielded ringed plovers and red-breasted mergansers for the year, whilst a Mediterranean Gull was observed by Weymouth Pier on leaving the B&B.
 
11:30:  Portland Bill, Dorset (50.514097, -2.455360)
With no sign of the pack ice wanderer, a visit to the Bill provided the spectacle of four purple sandpipers being battered by the waves on the rocks just E of the lighthouse.   As each wave crashed in, the birds scuttled out of the way, only to return and feed in its wake.  I then drove back into Weymouth in search of the gull.
 
12:30-13:15:  Lodmoor West Scrape, Dorset (50.629974, -2.443826)
In anticipation of the gull dropping in, a pleasant spell at a sunny Lodmoor, a lovely little reserve nesting right in the heart of Weymouth, produced a range of waders including an avocet, five ruff, black-tailed godwit, lapwing, snipe and dunlin.  Whilst the target gull never appeared, between 12:45 and 12:50, in rapid succession, two Glaucous Gull, a second and third winter, dropped into the scrape, with the third-winter being strikingly owlish white in colour. Two spoonbills, one colour-ringed, gave superb views feeding at close range.
 
14:20-15:30:  Radipole Lake, Dorset (50.615604, -2.460220)
After checking Bowleaze Cove, news came that the Ross’s Gull had been refound at Radipole Lake.  Given its preference for staying in any place for just ten minutes at a time, the foot went firmly down on the accelerator.  On arrival at 14:35, a group of around forty people were enjoying this snowy wanderer, which, as someone said, looked almost like a snow-petrel with its tiny dark eye and bill.  The rosy hints on the under-parts were apparent in the sunlight.  Around 14:50, the bird took flight once again, looking in excellent shape considering its remarkable journey. 
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    This diary updates my efforts to see as many British birds in the UK as possible in 2018, using IOC taxonomy.  The list itself is viewable at www.bubo.org and will be updated more regularly than this blog.

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