It's very overcast tonight so I guessed the beach would be quite undisturbed. I decided to have a last-minute look off the lifeboat station. The boy racers were out in force and I was actually quite grateful that one particularly loud spluttering heap back-fired loudly enough to wake this bird up. It was initially asleep and I very nearly passed it off as a juv herring. Its crown looked dark, its tertials looked too patterned and the greater coverts looked crap. The tail however looked too black for herring gull and the rest of the upperparts just a little too smart! Once it woke it shifted its wing to reveal better-looking dark bases to the greater coverts and a subtly darker eye-surround. It then wing-stretched to reveal a lovely dark wing. It's a petite and quite dainty individual but a lovely bird. It may be the 'probable' I had this morning but I'm pretty certain it's yet another bird.
wing-stretch
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