Patch Life

After trailing behind for most of the year, I've finally had the time to wander around my patch at WWT Llanelli for some new patch ticks. Having no patch ticks throughout July and none so far for August, it was time I pulled my finger out and found some ticks!
I stayed down the hides for a hour after finishing my shift at 5pm with only my bins, hoping that something decent came past. A little while after only seeing Gulls and Black Tailed Godwits, something caught my eye in the distance, a quite large white bird was making its way around the back of the scrapes, having to swap windows and then figuring out where I was originally looking, I got the bird in my bins only to see it was the Spoonbill that had been seen the day before! Spoonbills are an annual visitor to the scrapes but was the first of the year (although much later than last year..) and one of my favourite birds to see on the reserve. Having watched this bird be tormented by Lapwings, I decided I would give the estuary a quick check since the sun was beginning to set which meant the haze wasn't too bad to see through, the gulls were coming in to roost on the estuary but the cockle pickers then scared them off with their trucks which then meant they came closer, a quick look at the group showed most to be Juvenile LBBG or Herring Gulls, except one bird caught my eye. Looking at it, it didn't quite look like either of the other gulls that were there but my head clicked with could it possibly be a Yellow-Legged Gull? Having never seen a Juv Yellow-Legged gull before I was a little doubtful with my ID, flicking through the Colins it looked more likely to be a YLG juv! Patch Tick! 
Excited by the bird, I turned back to the huge flock of Black Tailed Godwits sleeping in front of me. As they were huddled so close together it was rather difficult to look at every individual bird, after going through as many birds as I can one bird hunkered down in the grass caught my eye, after one Godwit finally moved I could see the bird's feathers properly and it was a very pretty Ruff! 2 Green Sandpipers were the highlights of the following day a patch and life tick for me!