Further investigations of the gull roost suggest that at last light many of the larger gulls fy from the D res and then drop onto the O res for the night - which is relatively unobserved - with very little perceptible movement away from the reserve.
To accompany it was a yellow-legged gull too and 53 white fronted geese. 5 redshank have also been frequenting the reserve along with the red-head smew on Watton yesterday.
Meanwhile I ended up thigh deep in mud on a pursuit of owls. The long-eared owl report from Monday has now been vindicated - and was seen by a regular hunting a neighbouring site (with the short-eared's too). At some stage we will post details as it is on private land - in the meantime speak to one of the Wardens and we'll point you in the right direction.
As there are no pictures yet of any of them here is the last one from September 2008 by HVWG:
Lastly earlier this year we mentioned the informal photo contest to submit a picture for the basis of the 2012 membership card (and win a years' membership too). I will be shortlisting the best pictures on December the 10th - so that is the deadline. The rules are it must have been taken at Tophill over the last year, and have either been e-mailed or handed in. To keep everything above-board I will be taking the anonymous shortlisted pics to my Yorkshire Water colleagues who will vote on their favourite...
