Sunday supplement - Earlswood Lakes (Little Gull)

 You know how it is, you're gathering brownie points at home, promising to cook your wife a lovely meal. But just as you enter the kitchen a loud ping rings out. You check your phone and what do you know? Little Gull at Earlswood.

Brownie points are cast aside. "I won't be long". And you're off.

Matt G had found the bird on Engine Pool, and both he and the bird were still there when I arrived. The Little Gull was flying around the middle of the lake along with two newly arrived Swallows.

Little Gull

Mostly showing in flight, it occasionally dropped onto the water for a few seconds. An adult moulting into summer plumage, it's head still speckled in a kind of halfway house towards full summer plumage.

This is a classic arrival. Easterlies, a lake, late March/early April. Little Gulls are never guaranteed, but always a possibility. It will have been heading for the Netherlands or Sweden,  on its way back from the Atlantic where it will have wintered. A little bit of adverse weather is all it takes.

Thanks Matt.