2nd winter Ring-billed Gull, Galway

Having seen the adult Ring-billed Gull, I was scoping Galway Bay briefly with Dermot Breen. I commented that I was hoping to find one in Lothian. His comment was pretty much, "Oh funnily enough, here's one!" And there it was right in front, a cracking 2nd winter Ring-billed Gull. Sometimes I really wonder how much I miss...

I watched the bird through the scope for a good while, trying to etch its image into my brain. I am really hoping to put this search image to good use. After absorbing these distant views I wandered onto the upper shore and threw some bread to see if it would come any closer... From these photos, you can see that it did. Looks like a male to me, with that heavy bill.

This bird was seen at Waterside later on by Tom Cuffe. He noticed that it had unusually blue legs. How cool!