Caspian Gulls, United Arab Emirates, 7 Feb 2009

This post shows a number of cachinnans photographed in UAE this winter. Most were photographed in the fish market in Dubai. This is the second time I have visited the market - it is a superb place for gulls in the early morning (0700-0900) when fish is being unloaded. However, the market is a challenging place - sorting out the mass of squabbling immature large gulls is not easy and is rather daunting at first. The most common gull large gull here is barabensis, followed by heuglini then cachinnans. Fortunately the cachinnans attract attention to themselves once they start calling and raising their wings.


Adult, Ras al Khaima. A real beauty.


Third winter (4 cy), Dubai fish market


Second winter (3 cy), Dubai fish market. Same bird is shown in the sequence of shots below.

Same bird as above

Same bird as above; this was a typically aggressive bird and dominated the heuglini and barabensis.

Showing the typical small mirror on second generation P10

First winter (2 cy), Ras al Khaima.

First winter (2 cy), Ras al Khaima. Early morning light makes the overall colour tones look rather warm.

First winter (2 cy), Dubai fish market. Same bird is shown below.

First winter (2 cy), Dubai fish market. Scapulars rather more strongly marked than the textbook cachinnans, but actually this sort of pattern is not too unusual. A few second generation wing coverts are present.

Heuglin's Gulls in the United Arab Emirates, Feb 2-9 2009.

This post shows a selection of heuglini photographed on a recent trip to UAE. They nicely illustrate aspects of the jizz, wing tip pattern and late moult of this taxon. Great birds, but of course they are a tricky proposition in western Europe.

White-winged gulls, Peterhead, 14 & 15 Feb 2009

This weekend, 4 Iceland and 3 Glaucous Gulls were around Peterhead. This post shows most of these individuals.


A beautiful, delicate white bird.

2 cy Iceland. Same bird as above

2 cy Iceland. A different individual.

Adult Iceland. I only saw this bird on Saturday

2 cy Iceland

2 cy Glaucous

2 cy Glaucous. A pale, now rather worn bird. This bird has become progressively paler during its extended stay; when it first arrived it was considerably darker and more chevroned than now.

2 cy Glaucous. Same bird as above.

Glaucous-winged and Western Gulls: examples of apparent pure and hybrid individuals

The following is a selection of gulls from California, all photographed between 12 and 30 December 2008. They may be useful and hopefully interesting, given the bird recently present on Teeside. I certainly have little experience of these taxa and while many birds showed obvious intermediate characters, I struggled to be 100% sure about the identification of a number of more subtle individuals. For this reason, and to makes things a little more interesting, I have refrained from putting names to the birds pasted below; they are simply ordered to extend from apparently pure Glaucus winged to pure Westerm, with many birds inbetween - some obvious, some not so obvious.

Bird 1. Petaluma

Bird 2. Half Moon Bay

Bird 3a. Petaluma

Bird 3b (same individual as as above). Petaluma.

Bird 4. Petaluma.

Bird 5a. Petaluma

Bird 5b (same individual as above). This bird shows intersting (odd?) variable pigmentation within the grey of the outer primaries (notably P8).

Bird 6. Half Moon Bay

Birds 7 and 8 (the two foreground birds). Left hand bird may be an American Herring hybrid of some sort.

Bird 9. Half Moon Bay

Bird 10. Half Moon Bay

Bird 11. Petaluma.

Bird 12. Half Moon Bay

Bird 13. Half Moon Bay

A selection of 1 cy Thayer's Gulls, Half Moon Bay, California, 14 Dec 28

This post shows a selection of subtly different Thayer's Gulls. Some show the accepted phenotypic characters of this taxon, but others (e.g. the second bird) would be rather difficult to identify with 100% confidence out of range.

Half Moon Bay, California (13 December)

Peregrine Falcon. This bird spooked the gulls and actually took a California Gull...

Peregrine, with its prize

Ring-tailed 'Marsh Hawk'

Mew Gull

California Gull (2 cy)

California Gull (2 cy)

Western Gull (adult)

Mew Gull (1 cy). A real cracker

Glaucous Winged Gull

California Gull