Waited for this to come on pager on Sunday morning before we headed off just past Keighley, a reasonably quiet drive as it was Sunday. The satnav took us straight through the centre of Bradford which was an absolute nightmare, glad Simon was driving, but I excelled as co-pilot and we were soon up there on the moors parking with the masses. We had missed it on the tarn and it had flown from the nearby fields so it was just a matter of waiting. Coffee and cookies came out, lots of folk to chat to and the sun beamed down. With 'Last of the Summer Wine' scenery to admire, no complaints at all. The tarn was alot smaller than we imagined, just a very large village pond size and with a constant stream of Sunday folk with dogs and kids, all throwing last weeks bread in. We had waited perhaps 3 or 4 hours when the call went up that it was in a ploughed field a mile away. Not too sure if the field was a mile away or the bird was a mile away, we followed the crowd and soon realised that it was both ! Most drove, like wacky races but we enjoyed the brisk walk with scenery to die for. Distant was an understatement being a couple of fields away, but the bird was soon picked out and we chose our spot wisely with some birders having stone walls obscuring views. The gulls fed and snoozed so we beat a retreat, walking back to the tarn at a more sensible pace, admiring the scenery and talking to the locals. It had been a long day so decided to head home, this time finding the Bradford ring road. The gull did come on the pager later on when it spent 5 minutes on the tarn but we were home by then, feet up, pot of tea and more than happy with our views. A new UK bird taking Karen's UK tally to 422.
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