Urban birding at Hull: Sculcoates week 33

A grey, warm day, I walk to Sculcoates after lunch. I had a late afternoon walk yesterday too, just to the drain and back, with a short stop at the Temple street patch of brownfield. Today I walk to the river. A Cormorant flies downstream as I arrive. The Sea Aster is flowering by Wilmington Bridge. 

It is low tide and the usual mix of gulls, Lesser Black-backed gulls Herring gulls with their young, and returned Black-headed Gulls are on the mud and the flood wall. The adults being hassled by juveniles, or bathing, or sleeping, the juveniles calling persistently and begging their parents. The Black-headed gulls looking for tidbits on the mud. I sit on a mooring and watch them for a while. Despite my staring and photographing them I'm left alone and I'm not mobbed. I guess the young have now all fledged and are confident flying so the parents can relax a bit about predators.

Mixed group of gulls.

One of the adult Lesser black-backed Gulls has got a Flounder, but it appears to be unable to swallow it, so it abandons it on the shore. A juvenile picks it up and carries it, dropping it several times and picking it up. 

Adult Lesser black-backed gull trying to deal with the flounder.

Juvenile LBBG with the flounder. 

Butterflies at Temple street brownfield patch

Since I found this little wild corner by the cycle lane, I've been visiting it regularly, usually making a butterfly list. I was  surprised to find 4 Common Blue butterflies despite no Bird's- foot Trefoil. Back at home I learned that Black Medick, a low growing relative, which is plentiful in the site, is also larval food plant. A newly emerged Small Tortoiseshells and two Red Admirals were also about.

Female Common Blue

Small Tortoiseshell.

Red Admiral.

A male Common Blue. This one was very pristine, but the other had some wing damage that helped me count how many there were.

Another male Common Blue butterfly.

A holly blue on Berberis by the cycle path today.