All my birding at the moment seems to be centred around finding juvenile yellow-legged gulls and I don't really know why! I always get a bit obsessed with them at this time of year. I love watching all gull species but there is something inexplicably appealing about juv yellow-legs. Perhaps it is the tremendous variation shown and the fact you've got to do a bit of work to sort them out. That said, all ten of the birds I've seen this summer have given off immediate 'yellow-legged' vibes at first glance and then proved to be so with further scrutiny. There were two birds off the seafront this morning - a big dark long-winged bird (see above sketch) and a smaller, paler contrasty individual. Both showed the tell-tale upperwing pattern but I only managed photos of the larger bird as it headed towards the Warren before veering east across Exmouth town. The paler bird looked amazing but it was often just below eye-line on the other side of Pole Sands.
This is the larger and darker of the two birds as it heads towards Dawlish Warren.
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