Working at home, with both Michelle there, and Sam off sick. A Long-tailed Tit caught our attention as it continually pecked at our windows. It would happily fed (with a flock of five birds plus other Tits) and then move away from the flock towards the window. It repeated this behaviour for about fifteen minutes.
Sam also recorded a video of it on his iPod (not that this is it, the iPod doesn’t actually load 35mm film, but it looks nice!)
As soon as it finished I made the dash to London to where the Slaty-backed Gull was back at Rainham. Touch and go as to whether I would make it, and initially I thought I’d missed it by a few minutes when I arrived about 4:15pm. Fortunately it was relocated and I managed to watch it for half an hour before it flew west down the Thames past the Dartford Bridge.
I pretty much saw it as the image below (by Andy Lawson, pinched from Surfbirds.) The colour in this photograph pretty much reflects the colour in the field to my eyes (unlike some photographs which seem to show it looking paler.) There may also have been a Yellow-legged Gull present (possibly even the bird in the photograph) but I couldn’t determine leg colour properly from the range.
