A few birds starting to move locally

That's another weekend gone, and there has been a little bit more happening locally here in southeast London. I was trying to summon up ideas to get out into the countryside, but unless you're into flowers and the like, this time of year is best to just put in the hours locally and save up the effort for when things start moving later on.

And there are quite a lot of scruffy looking gulls here at the moment to keep me busy. Week nights have been spent going through them in Rotherhithe, mainly as they chill out on the moored barges by Greenland Quay. And then today and yesterday, I walked around the O2 Arena to the area of mud at the end that's exposed at low tide; yesterday lots of gulls but nothing of interest and then today, very different - 5 Yellow-legged Gulls (near adult, three 2nd-summers and a 1st-summer) plus a couple of NTGG rings and a new scheme too on a Lesser Black-backed Gull that I'm awaiting details on. There were also two Reed Warblers singing in the reeds by Antony Gormley's Quantum Cloud sculpture.

near adult Yellow-legged Gull Greenwich, London 28th June 2015 - same bird in both above photos; note the dark on the primary-coverts, reduced mirrors and dull yellow legs

2nd-summer Yellow-legged Gull Greenwich, London 28th June 2015

1st-summer Yellow-legged Gull Greenwich, London 28th June 2015

On Friday, I also added a new ringing scheme to Rotherhithe - a yellow ringed 2nd-summer Herring Gull ending in 'B' that'll have been ringed by the East Anglia Gull Group, most likely at Milton Tip near Cambridge (still awaiting details though).

2nd-summer Herring Gull Rotherhithe, London 26th June 2015 - 5V0B, ringed by the East Anglia Gull Group