White-billed Divers and more

The Portsoy diver trip on Saturday produced 13 White-billed.  Spectacular is the only word to describe these birds. Spectacular. Sea conditions were rather rough and it was very tricky standing still enough to get any good photos.  

Some nice light conditions on the Ythan before the diver trip provided a window to get some eider pics - King and Common...

Interesting Jackdaw, Mintlaw

Lots of fields are being ploughed and raked at the moment, so lots of bird activity in them.  Yesterday (Sunday) I had this bird in fields on the edge of Mintlaw.  I've been looking at Jackdaws for a while now (both here and abroad) and have had several collared birds in Aberdeenshire, but this is the most striking I've seen.  Its collar is deep and very pale from all angles.  The underparts seem rather blackish to me and in some ways it resembles the more eastern soemmerringii than the Nordic monedula.  Having said that, I'm very distrusting of Jackdaws as its seems there is considerable variability in our local birds and there are problems of intergradation between the various taxa - see for example a useful discussion here by Alan Tilmouth. http://birdingfrontiers.com/2011/04/10/eastern-jackdaws/

So, I will leave you to decide what to make of this bird.  I will keep recording them and in time hopefully it will all make sense...

Lighter shades of pale: Some adult Kumlien's Gulls from Newfoundland (Jan. 2013)

I spent a great week at St John's, Newfoundland in late January.  Many thanks to Peter Adriaens, Jan Baert and Bruce Mactavish for great company on the trip and many stimulating discussions - I learnt a lot. Here is a scence from Pier 17 in the main harbour area.  Kumlien's heaven.

Time was spend between 2 or 3 main areas, photographing gulls.  Above and below is an adult Kumlien's at Quidi Vidi lake.

A fair amount is now known amount Kumlien's, although much remains to be determined.  A key paper on adults is that of Howell and Mactavish (2003; Alula 9, 2-15). Much information was also recently put on the Gull Research Organisation (ORG) web site - for many images and info on primary patterns and eye pigmentation, see http://gull-research.org/glaucoides/pdf/primpatterns.html. So, there is no point in repeating information here.  All I have done in this post is to pull out some examples of a few extreme adult birds seen on the trip.

A pale bird, both in terms of grey tones and the apparent absence of any dark pigmentation in the primaries. (Tempting to think about birds with paler upperparts as glaucoides, but see final images in this post).

A bird with just a touch of ash grey on the outer web of the outer primary, ' b' in Fig 2 of Howell and Mactavish

Dark on the outer web of 3 primaries (b or c in Howell and Mactavish)

 Now dark bands across P7 and 8 along with dark up the outer webs (closest to e)

 Dark pigmentation includes bar across P 9 as well as P8 and 7, although no dark up the ouer webs.

More dark still (closest to  k).

 ..and more again...but notice that the tone is still just dark ash grey

OK, now we are getting interesting.....The same bird is shown on the water and in the wing close-up above. An example of a dark bird, close to black on several feathers and the dark is very extensive. But notice that P10 has only an isolated dark spot within the white tip, and the mirror on P9 reaches the outer web; these features help seperate such birds from Thayer's.

This is a very dark bird, the darkest we saw and getting close to Thayer's (e.g. vert dark slaty-black tone, full black band across the tip of P10 and dark on both webs of P5). On P9 we would like a Thayer's to have a complete dark outer web but on this bird the mirror extends across the outer web and so reaches the cutting edge of the feather....that said, to complicate matters( on the image below showing its right wing), it is clear that the pattern is different...!   

Here on the right wing it has more black on P9 but less on P10 than on the left wing!

This is the bird standing. The Thayer's ish impression was enhanced by the solidly dark eye, but the structure was no different to the accompanying Kumlien's.  A great bird to see.

And at the other end of the spectrum, a bird to show that individuals with paler grey upperparts do not always have unmarked primaries.

As can be seen, the primary pattern is closest to b rather than a ( a has no dark pigmentation in any primaries). 

A new year and a new Glaucous

This 1 cy bird was in Frazerburgh yesterday - a nice start for the new year

Isabelline Wheatear: odd pose/behaviour

Just been sorting out images for a talk that I'm giving and was reminded of this bird that I saw a few years ago.  A great bird, but I have always wondered about the wings-open pose: has anyone come across this behaviour before in this species?

Some interesting and some spectacular birds from Azerbaijan

These images are all from a trip to Azerbaijan in June/July 2012.  From a birding perspective, Azerbaijan is an incredibly interesting country, because of a mixture of some spectacular birds and a number of eastern taxa that occur (or potentially occur) in Britain as vagrants. Pictured above is a Blue-cheeked Bee-eater - one of the spectacular birds.

 Eastern Black Redstart

 Adult and juvenile Snow Finch

 Juvenile Snow Finch

 Adult Snow Finch

 Eastern Nightingale golzii

 An interesting (grey-headed) female red-backed Shrike

An intersting male Red-backed Shrike - note the white in the base of the primaries

 Juvenile samamisicus Redstart

 An adult female.  Adult birds were very worn during the visit in June/July.

 And and adult male -  the silvery wing panel is very evident on this individual.

 White Wagtail.  The taxon that occurs in Azerbaijan has extensively white greater coverts

 Lesser Kestrel

 Lesser Kestrel

 Blue-checked Bee-eaters

 Rufous Bush Robin

 A male samamisicus - note the reduced wing panel on this individual, related to wear

 Calandra Larks

 Calandra Lark

 Rock Bunting

 Rock Thrush (male)

 Rock Thrish (Juv)

 Shore Lark

 Common Rosefinch

 Rose-coloured Starlings

 An adult

A juvenile