Urban birding at Hull: City Centre and Albert Dock

A warm day with barely any wind and clear skies. I take an early morning walk to Albert Dock, via the City Centre, Queen's Gardens and the Hull Marina. At Queen's Gardens ponds I'm surprised there are still two ducklings left, now well grown, that have survived Herring Gull predation. I hear a soft call and find a fledgling Mistle Thrush. A passer by flushes it inadvertently, and it is still unable to fly well. It is surprisingly speckled.

 There is also a Blackbird fledgling in the same area.

 Two Feral Pigeons are doing some courtship feeding. They mate and then they stand next to each other, their plumage all fluffed up, like posing.

 A male Pied Wagtail looks for insects on the lawns.

 After a walk around Queen's Gardens, I move onto Princes Quay. While searching for wagtails I notice a fishing Cormorant and manage a shot in the few seconds that it surfaces between dives.

 I walk around the city centre, to the Minster, Princes Street and then move to the Marina and towards the right of way entrance to Albert Dock. There are lots of insects in the air, and there is a spectacle of starlings hawking for them. An abundant resource pushes them into an unusual way of feeding. Judging by the insects landing on me there seems to be a mixture of them including flies and beetles, maybe brought in by the warm air.

 As I cross the lock, I notice the busy House Martins hunting, and then, from the elevated bridge, I watch them collecting mud from the only puddle in sight.

 A Shelduck flies along the Humber, and then two Black-headed Gulls, taking the list of urban birds since lockdown to 60 species.

 My heard skipped a beat when this robin landed on a truck as I had been searching for Black Redstarts, but no luck.

Two House Martin nests under the eaves of the buildings by the entrance to the dock.

Linnets are more common around town than I expected. This male was singing from a traffic sign in a car park in front of the Bonus Arena.

 On the way back, the first House Sparrow fledgling, begging to its parent.

Bird list

1. Black-headed Gull
2. Blackbird
3. Blackcap 
4. Blue Tit 
5. Buzzard 
6. Carrion Crow
7. Chaffinch 
8. Collared Dove 
9. Cormorant 
10. Dunnock 
11. Feral Pigeon
12. Goldfinch 
13. Great Spotted Woodpecker 
14. Greenfinch 
15. Greylag Goose 
16. Herring Gull 
17. House Martin 
18. House Sparrow 
19. Lesser Black-backed Gull
20. Linnet 
21. Magpie 
22. Mallard 
23. Mistle Thrush 
24. Moorhen
25. Pied Wagtail 
26. Robin 
27. Shelduck 
28. Sparrowhawk 
29. Starling 
30. Stock Dove 
31. Whitethroat 
32. Woodpigeon 
33. Wren