Black-headed Gull 218F was back at Center Parcs Sherwood Forest this week after being spotted by @WLBirding in London. #Chroicocephalus #ridibundus #GullOfTheDay @nuttytussock

BHG 285S is back with 235H on the riverside in Otley. We last met on 24 September in Roundhay Park. Google maps suggests that I could walk this distance in just over 4 hours 🤔 but doesn’t give a flight time for a young gull! #Chroicocephalus #ridibundus #NWBHGs #GullOfTheDay

This is darker than any of his 16 female paratypes, which have at least a bit of orange on underside of scape, and mostly orange legs. Possibly the peculiar summer we have had, together with autumnal emergence, might explain smaller than usual size and darker than usual colour.

Mark Shaw has now examined this specimen and says that it appears to be a small, dark, example of Diadegma luffiae Horstmann. “D. luffiae Horstmann, with which your female specimen agrees well in all morphological features – except that it is rather small, and very much darker”

This could be the very definition of a “record shot”! 😂 Black-headed Gull 295R has arrived back at Yeadon Tarn, Leeds, after an excursion to Schleswig-Holstein, Germany 🇩🇪 #GullOfTheDay #GullsOfYeadon #Chroicocephalus #ridibundus #NWBHGs

3cy Black-headed Gull 285S was in Roundhay Park, Leeds, today. It was originally ringed in Otley but has also been seen in Farnworth, Greater Manchester. #Chroicocephalus #ridibundus #NWBHGs #GullOfTheDay #GullsOfRoundhay

Black-headed Gull 20JJ is still at Yeadon Tarn, Leeds. It was ringed as a pullus on 13 June 2026 in Flixton, SUFFOLK and arrived in Yeadon on 13 August. #GullsOfYeadon #GullOfTheDay #Chroicocephalus #ridibundus

Red Underwing (Catocala nupta) at Hollins Hall, Baildon, this morning. #VC64

Shibden Park, Halifax, today. I get the impression that the migration of European gulls to the UK hasn’t really started yet. 225K is a regular here and has never been seen anywhere else! Coot RX6 is showing its age now.

This Tachinid fly is one of two that emerged from a Comma pupa. They had obviously parasitised the caterpillar before it pupated. #VC64 #Diptera #Parasitoid

A rather tatty Speckled Wood has appeared in the back garden.

A tiny ichneumon has emerged from this long-lived Luffia lapidella larval case. I suspect the parasitoid might be a female Diadegma naryciae but I will have to get my old microscope out to look for confirmatory features. #Larva aeterna #Campopleginae #Ichneumonidae #VC64

This morning’s fox didn’t have a white tail tip.

The Norfolk-ringed Black-headed Gull (2A1Y) is still at Yeadon Tarn. Ringed as a nestling on 27 June at Marlingford Hall, it appeared at Yeadon two weeks ago at the same time as a bird ringed in Suffolk. I wonder how many others are from East Anglia? #Chroicocephalus #ridibundus

Another parasitoid pupa has appeared. These are Diptera

Sunday breakfast at McDonalds 😀

I have just watched a Speckled Wood lay these two eggs on the underside of a blade of the Cock’s-foot grass that I allow to grow on our old coal bunker. I have found the caterpillars here in previous years and assume that the sunny, west-facing, sheltered location is suitable 😀

The Suffolk-ringed Black-headed Gull is still at Yeadon Tarn 😀 #Chroicocephalus #ridibundus #GullsOfYeadon #VC64