Ross's Gull, Bowling Green marsh - 27/06/2014

An all too easy, rock-up-and-see-it Ross's Gull was the highlight of yesterday's outing. It had been present for about six weeks at BGM, and I had been keeping my eye on the Devonshire forum to see if it was hanging around. I had an early start down to the hide and sure enough, there he was, quite obvious amongst the BGH's. I'd forgotten my bins, so it was birding via camera again.

Also present were two Spotted Redshanks, giving me the second lifer, Brit, and year tick of the day. They were both looking pretty dapper in the finest Summer black, and busy pruning between rain showers. They were tucked away at the back of the marsh amongst a herd of curlew, and I had to borrow a look through another chap's scope to see them. Funnily enough he had the Opticron 80 ED.. It gave me an itch to get a scope so bad that a few hours later I had more or less impulsively bought one at Darts Farm. I've gone for a much cheaper model than the Opticron that I had been fancying, using my staff discount and going for the RSPB AG80, with a 20-60 Zoom eye piece,tripod/cover bundle. It's not the same quality level as the Opticron admittedly, however, a test drive yesterday evening and this morning shows that it is adequate for what I need a scope for currently, and I've saved myself easily £600. It also revealed some Common Sand's for a tick for 2014 that I would not have realised were there, the first bobbing on a buoy on the Exe, and the others on the slowly emerging sandbank in the distance.