Monday 2 August 2010

1 cy Yellow-legged Gulls Larus michahellis: a sample of July birds from NE Spain

This post shows a sample of 1 cy michahellis, all photographed on the beach at Roses (a small resort near Girona, Catalonia, NE Spain) on the same day. They nicely illustrate variation in the plumage and structure of michahellis at this time (25 July, 2010). In another month when wear and moult have set in, these birds will be very easy to identify; but on this date many are, in my opinion, rather difficult to seperate from some Herring and some Lesser Black-backed Gulls. The post which follows shows the same sample of birds in flight.




In some ways this bird is a little reminiscent of cachinnans (it is rather gangly and has very simply patterned greater covs)

Note how weak-billed some young 1 cys can be.

Very simple fringes on all feathers, including gtr covs.























A bird with extensively pale feather patterns


3 comments:

Glen Webber (Wildlife Photography) said...

Your top Gull image is great. Love the stance!

Mike Watson said...

Hi Gibb, great set of images, very helpful. I see you seem to be getting spammed a lot too. I set my comments to be moderated all the time to stop this kind of crap appearing on my blog. Keep up the good work mate1 Br, Mike

Alan Dalton said...

Hi Chris, great set off images here, very useful indeed. Have been watching and blogging about Gulls in Stockholm for the last few years and building a library of reference photos for argentatus Herring in the process. A single Yellow Legged Gull and a small number of Caspian Gull have provided highlights, along with western LGG Gull and a Glaucous. Great blog, keep it up.
Have had simular spam issues, the moderate comments option has solves that issue for me.
Alan Dalton.