Yet another victim of an angler

A beautiful sun rise at the fishing boats this morning, saw the 3w Glaucous Gull nearby on the beach, several 100s of Great Crested Grebes on the sea, a few each of Gannet, Kittiwake, Guillemot and Red-throated Diver on the sea.  As the sun rose sea watching became difficult looking straight into it, so I went round to the sea watching hide.

 At the sea watching hide I noticed a juvenile gull behaving oddly, but quickly realised it was another anglers victim. David Gower who keeps the beach clean joined me, I pointed the gull out to him, as he lives nearby he fetched a knife and pliers and we went down the beach to see if we could help the gull.

Hooked

 As the hook was embedded into its lower mandible and the line was secured to the beach, it was unable to fly away which was fortunate.

No Escape 

 I easily caught the gull and could see that it had ripped its flesh around its bill trying to free its self.  I held it tightly while David pushed the hook through the lower mandible enabling him to cut the hook off the line and free the bird from its bond. Immediately that was done I set it on the beach and it flew off hopefully learning a lesson and leaving me to head for The Patch.

The hook has penetrated the lower mandible

 At The Patch 100s of Black-headed Gulls also 2 Mediterranean Gulls of note, a Black Redstart was on power station wall.
New Diggings held 6 Smew (1 drake) and 2 Great white Egrets. On the ARC Pit 100s of the common wildfowl and 32 Bewick Swans of note.
A walk around the reserve was pleasant with 100s of the common wild fowl, another Great White Egret on Denge Marsh, 3 Marsh Harriers and a pair of Stonechats.

Probably the rarest birds on the marsh today were 3 Egyptian Geese at Scotney and little else of note there. On Walland I could only find 28 Bewick Swans (others had 54 + 2 Whoopers). A wander out onto the marsh on one of the footpaths produced the Common Crane and c20 Marsh Harriers but it was cut short by the rain.