Ross's Gull at Radipole Lake RSPB

Every birder will tell you he has a few target birds he'd really like to see and for me the Ross's Gull would be very close to the top of that list so when news came of an adult bird spending the last couple of days in Dorset I conceived the plan to get Saturday morning off work and head down the M3 hoping I could find the little Arctic visitor.

Ross's Gull at Radipole RSPB

Ross's Gull

I picked up Jim and set off just after 5am arriving at Ferrybridge on the causeway to Portland just after 8am. News came out that the bird had dropped in at Lodmoor so we turned the car around and headed there to find hardly any cars in the car park which surprised us. I climbed the bank to scan the scrape flushing a Firecrest on the way and found only Med Gull of interest on the scrape. I returned to the car which Jim had been looking after and we checked the phone only to find that the bird had taken off almost immediately so we joined the other birders back at Ferrybridge and waited for a couple of hours hoping the tiny Gull would join us.

Spoonbill 

under attack

The temperature struggled to get above freezing as we waited enjoying the many Red-breasted Mergansers, Shag, Oystercaters, Dunlin and Ringed Plovers and I picked out a single Rock Pipit to give Jim a year tick but after a couple of hours we still hadn't seen the target and the crowd had all but disappeared to various cafe's etc to warm up.

second and third winter Glaucs

We stopped off at Radipole and enjoyed a coffee whilst we scanned the gulls there  but with no sign of the bird we left for Lodmoor. We found the two reported Spoonbill and as we snapped a couple of images a message appeared saying "Ross's Gull again at Lodmoor at 11.34am" now as we were at Lodmoor the panic set in and as we rushed back round to the scrape the message changed to Radipole so it was a race to get back in the cars and the two mile drive. We pulled into the car park and found the bridge next to the visitor centre already filling with the twitch. We joined them and quickly got on the target as it roosted on a small shingle island a few yards from the bridge. It sat there for around 50 minutes giving most of the birders that had made the trip to Dorset plenty of time to connect.

Snipe.....never seen so many in a day!

When the bird flew we had a quick look for the plastic Merganser then left for a bit more Lodmoor on the way home where we found two stunning Glaucous Gulls to finish a terrific day in Dorset.

The bridge under pressure

The Ross's on the small island with the Blackheads.

Year list now 167  Life list now 393