Rare digiscope effort at Staines Res. Frustrating to be limited to causeway - Lesser Scaup a mirage in the far corner. More generous access surely possible with screens to limit disturbance. I’m not quite tall enough to see over the fence spikes but beached shopping trolleys showing well…

Another even worse…

A shit photo from the halfway point of a great holiday. Doable as no-fly (I flew one way and surface travelling back and will do better next time). Any guesses for the location…

I vaguely remember my parents buying me something like this when I was 11, shortly to be replaced by an Opticron HR.

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Fumbling around with an iPhone scope adapter. Great White Egret at ARC Dungeness. Also Bittern, 2 GN Divers, Lt Duck and a handful of new for me Caspian Gulls. (Thanks to the local birders for pointers on the latter).

Thank you. 👍 I was leaning towards Y-leg too. I’ve got a bit distracted with images of Armenian Gull based on bill colouration and common gull head but realise I should rule that as they are extreme vagrants. I guess there’s a lot of overlap between features. (My bird was in Amsterdam yesterday)

Hi. Always enjoyed your tweets, so good to see you on here too. Sorry to intrude but as you know your gulls better than I do, please could you advise if this is a Casp or Y-leg. Thanks.

Yellow-legged or Caspian? Embarrassed to admit I haven’t got round to learning Casp as they “weren’t a thing” when I grew up birding in the 90s. Not very leggy / snouty but fluffed up against the cold. (Work trip Amsterdam) thanks