Shore Thing

Updates and photos from around the world on my travels both through pleasure and work
The last week of March and the only gap in my diary represented an opportunity to combine research and reward. A recce to Extremedura in preparation for future guided wildlife trips, a chance to photograph some stellar species, combined with a bit of boys banter, held much promise. Extremadura is a much vaunted wildlife destination and this short jaunt justified that claim.
I made the trip in company of Messrs Ian Appleton, Anthony Brandreth and Daniel Pegg and we based ourselves at Torrejon el Rubio just a short distance from the fabled Monfragüe National Park.
Some birds are more of a dream than a reality and a high Arctic denizen such as Ivory Gull seldom make an appearance in the UK, preferring to spend most of their time scavenging around Polar Bear kills, or a deceased cetacean. When they do occur here they are most likely to be found standing atop a decaying beached whale, or seal. In recent years that had become an exceptionally rare occurrence, but that was about to change...
The late Autumn and early Winter of 2013 has delivered an unprecedented arrival of 1st Winter Ivory Gulls in the UK. Most of the birds appeared in the wake of a devastating low pressure system that ripped across the Atlantic from Greenland and made landfall with a massive storm surge on the 5th December.