Sunday 5 February 2012

Herring Gulls - the mind boggles



Same place, same day, but very four different birds. Here are some Herring Gulls from Peterhead yesterdy. Above (right) is an odd, petite bird, especially a small and pointed bill. In flight (see the two images below) it showed very silvery and contrasting inner primaries. It has retained juv scapulars and an odd tertial pattern.






A very pale bird, but combined with a rather extensively dark tail and well barred rump . Pale panel in the greater coverts scared me for a moment (ie. you never know, we might get a 1w Slaty-backed Gull one day) , but actually these coverts are rather well patterned and simply worn/faded (rather than being the uniform panel seen on SBG).



A nice muddy argentatus.


Its tail and upper tail coverts are nothing to get excited about.


An exceptionally dark bodied bird.



Tail is towards dark end for Herring Gull, but rump and upper tail coverts pattern is seen in many Herrings. I wonder whether we have got some birds that have come from the same places all all the Iceland Gulls?

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