Deer Park: Snipe and Med Gulls

Relatively quiet out here in the last few days, but 2 Snipe flushed on the Deer Park yesterday. The remnants of a large finch flock on the Trehill Farm fields are still in evidence, but now down to 100+ birds (vs. 3-4x that a few weeks ago); mainly Chaffinches, some Goldfinches and Greenfinches.

Lots of Song Thrushes on the Deer Park and in Martin's Haven valley, as well as slightly smaller numbers of Blackbirds.

Not much on the sea off Wooltack except for small numbers of auks. No Red-throated Divers seen at all this year so far: the same period of 2006 had a regular 3-5 divers there. However, the North-flowing tide again produced a steady feeding party of c200 Black-headed Gulls, together with a couple of immature Kittiwakes and at least 2 (probably several times this) Mediterranean Gulls. One of these was an adult with a partially developed black hood and a heavy bill: very distinctive against the other gulls. It is possible that a significant proportion of those Med Gulls that appear in the Dale Roads gull roost in the evenings spend at least a proportion of their "working day" in Jack Sound.