Gull's Liver Travels

Patchy patch addition

A quick routine check of all the prime Aldcliffe spots on Wednesday bore little fruit beyond the regular birds 'in-residence'.
The only thing of note was a striking looking leucistic pink-footed goose in amongst a flock of 600 on Aldcliffe Marsh. It looks remarkably similar to one that was seen at Martin Mere WWT reserve (see pics on Graham Clarkson's blog here) at the back end of 2012 and again in September 2014 (see WWT page here). We've had very pale 'milky-coffee' coloured pinkfeet at Aldcliffe in the past but this piebald effort was altogether a patchier affair as you can see in my photo.

Laughing gull

Today I was working in Liverpool so after a day of mostly being ignored by scousers, tourists and Green Party Conference attendees I took the opportunity to hop under the Mersey and go and have a look at the now long-lingering laughing gull at New Brighton Marine Lake.
With my trusty colleague Jayne in tow we strolled through the mass of people enjoying the early spring sunshine and immediately clapped eyes on the North American vagrant, sat on what has become its favoured pontoon on the lake.
Hardly impressive, it simply sat there throughout, occasionally raising its head to have a cursory look at its surroundings. As I looked at this waif I couldn't help but think 'you're not laughing now, are you?'. I'm sure it'd be better off on a warm sandy beach somewhere along the Gulf of Mexico where it really belongs...    
Although I've seen bucketloads of laughing gulls on the other side of the pond my last British bird was a moulting adult I found on the Lune at, what has been appropriately coined, Gull Bank back in August 2006.
Jon