3rd winter Iceland Gull in Galway

Still working through my collection of Iceland Gull photographs from the recent trip to Galway. The invasion is really concentrated in the Faroes and the Northern Isles. Hopefully I'll manage to find another in Lothian over the next few weeks...

Here is the first of the Iceland Gulls from one week ago. It was waiting for us on Nimmo's Pier and the whole family managed to see it without getting out of the car - which is just as well because they wouldn't have seen it otherwise! I saw it on three occasions over the next 24 hours and it was ther nearest to adult plumage that I saw on the trip - only a little brownish feathering on the breast and tail and the sub-adult bill pattern giving its age away. A very pale gull, it looked large and ghostly in flight.