Hampshire Twitches

Franklin's Gull (centre bird)

I had been tempted by the Franklin's Gull at Blashford Lakes for a couple of weeks and decided to take the plunge and organised a visit to my sister in Hampshire.  I travelled down last Friday afternoon and arrived at the site in good time to settle myself into the hide and watch the gulls as they came into the roost.  The gull itself was eventually found quite a distance away on the other side of the lake but was soon lost amongst all the other gulls of various shapes and sizes.  The flock was then flushed and it took a further 20 minutes and lots of string from various birders before the bird was located again, although I could not get onto it again and all the birds I was put onto were Blackheaded Gulls that still had full black heads.  Overall not a very satisfactory result.

I decided to go back and give the gull a second look the following day and did so via a slight diversion to twitch a Isabelline Shrike on Hengisbury Head.  The roost on Saturday proved to be more successful with the bird showing nicely.  Other birds of note were a Long Tailed Duck, Blacknecked Grebe and the first Ruddy Duck I have seen since 2009.  A flock of 2500 Starlings also entertained us as they murmutated over the lake.

Isabelline Shrike