Last Sunday was a pretty gloomy day so I wasn't expecting much luck with the camera as I headed down to North Lowestoft intending to walk along the beach but there were a few people on Gunton cliffs looking for a Dartford Warbler so I joined them for a while. The bird, however was not being very cooperative and although I did see it briefly it was not possible to photograph but then news came through that a Glaucous Gull was at Hamilton Dock so I drove down, found somewhere to park and joined the 20 or so people on the edge of the dock looking at the collection of gulls on the water which included the easily identifiable Glaucous Gull.
This is a large gull that occasionally winters around the coasts in this country between November and March normally in the juvenile phase of its life, as was this bird. The mottled brown feathering marked out this bird as a 1st winter youngster but the black end to its bill and size made identification positive. These gulls are common in the Arctic, Iceland, Greenland and North America but only a few make it here but as with most gulls they eat pretty much anything they can get and so are often found wherever a good source of food is. In the case here the people on the dockside were throwing food to the gulls so I was able to get some shots of the bird in flight as well as it chased after the snacks.
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