An unavoidable but by no means unpleasant visit to the County Town (Dorchester) during the week was to have had a bonus side to it, as on such occassions we can always fit in some Off-Piste Birding! Unfortunately, the weather had other ideas as fog-logged from Maiden Castle, just south west of the town, to Sandsfoot Castle, overlooking Portland Harbour some miles further south leaving us rather Piste Off!
However, with overnight temperatures predicted to hold ‘double figures’, for the rest of the week, there was light at the end of the tunnel, but continuing to read on the rest of the picture showed it was also to be accompanied by heavy rain until Saturday! Only calamitous misfortune will see us ‘absent from our place of duty’, as again we reach for the trusty archive and our equally trusty side-kick Dave Foot on a number of Wild Gull Chases!
The tale has been told before of that fateful day, 17/03/1988, when stood on the estuary of the River Tamar at Plymouth Devon with our dear friend Hugo Wood Homer watching a juvinile
(a denizen of the Arctic with this image having been borrowed to show it in full adult plumange) It was no more than a casulal quip had me telling him that this bird represented my 37th of the family group of 56 in the World with his reply inspiring me for life! "With your travels and determination is there any reason that one day you might conquer them all"? That particular fete was accomplished from this
finally made up the full pack without photographic evidence which also applied to Ivory Gull and Ross's Gull at that time.
Along with Dave we venture about as far north as it is possible in 2020 where on the east coast
(this adult at Gosport in Hampshire)
Jim the Medic who was a little disappointed as thought we had said
As far as another Yank is concerned we enjoyed both juvenile
