Gulls on ice.

Birders certainly develop some strange habits, and standing around looking at municipal rubbish tips is probably one of the worst.

Whinney Hill, near Blackburn is certainly not an attractive or scenic venue, birding does get you to some great places but this isn't one of them, especially if you have a well developed sense of smell.

The attraction of course is the large number of Gulls that use this free restaurant for feeding. This particular beauty spot has hosted a lot of goodies in the past, including Glaucous, Iceland, Yellow-legged, Caspian, Mediterranean and Ring-billed, but apart from Pete getting a brief view of a Yellow-legged Gull, today there were only the usual suspects on view.

The nearest pool, used by some Gulls for bathing is inside the tip area and today was largely frozen over. There were a few larger Gulls coming in but most of the Gulls on view were Black-headed, sliding around on the ice.

The few patches of open water did give some bathing opportunities, before the gull would leave later for a full brush and clean up at Fishmoor Reservoir. Most of the comings and goings at these sites can be sen on Bill Aspin's Blog.