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Plenty of food available for this pomarine skua
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THE famous breeding grey seal colony has not been this month's only wildlife attraction at Donna Nook down the Lincolnshire coast from Cleethorpes.
Also present for much of this month has been a rare bird - a pomarine skua.
Normally this is a species only seen out to sea on its migration
between the Arctic tundra , where it breeds, and on the coasts of West Africa where it spends winter.
For some reason, this bird has wandered off course and chosen to linger amid the seals whose afterbirth has been providing it with a ready source of food.
That's quite a change from its usual diet of lemmings in the Arctic or fish which it obtains by piratical flight attacks on seabirds smaller than itself - typically gulls and terns - which are panicked into regurgitating their last meal.
The pommie has an injured left, which dangles when it is in flight, but otherwise it seems to be in good health.
* The site is managed by the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust which today appealed to would-be visitors to stay away until further notice because the main car park has been transformed into a quagmire by heavy rainfall earlier in the week.
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Because of injury the bird is unable to retract its left leg
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It is thought the number of pups could reach as many as 2,000 by the end of the week
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Resting up - one of the mums
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What could be more cute and cuddly!
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Its orange coloration makes this specimen the colony's standout pup
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