King Eider, Ythan Estuary.

These images are all from 14 April.

Iceland and Glaucous Gulls, Peterhead

Still around 10 white winged gulls present at Peterhead yesterday (Sunday 18 March). This post shows a selection of the birds.

First (above) and second (below) winter Glaucous have both been around for several weeks

The first winter bird

First winter Glaucous

Iceland Gull: here are a few of the birds present at the weekend.

A Russian Common Gull (heinei)?

Keep your eye on the red dot....

Here is a Common Gull that I saw briefly (very frustrating) at Peterhead on 26 February. I've been playing around with criteria to identify heinei Common Gull and it turns out that this bird is a perfect match. Here are the images; some text and analysis follow...

It is the left hand bird in these two flight pics.

It was picked up as being distinctly darker than the canus and lacking their blue tone. Details in the wingtip are key. Note: (i) the deep black band on primary 5 (canus normally has a thin, uneven or broken band, or black only on one web), (ii) black extending all the way to the primary coverts on P8 (canus only 50-75 % of the way), (iii) extensive black on P7 (more than 80% of the way to the primary coverts; canus mostly less than 50%) and (iv) a long black 'bayonet' on the outer web of P6 extending for approx 65 % of the way to the primary coverts (maximum in my canus sample is 53%, with most having black only 20-40%). The overall result of these details is a wing tip that has a lot more black and less white than canus. All of these features evident on the Peterhead bird perfectly match heinei, as far as I can establish.

Can we be sure? Well, I characterised a sample of 55 birds using 8 wing tip traits and analysed them using PCA. The diagram at the top of this post is the result. The Peterhead bird is the red dot: it falls outwith the area occupied by canus and smack within the space occupied by heinei. This is fairly strong evidence, based on multiple traits analysed simultaneously, that this bird better fits Russian Common Gull L. canus heinei than nominate canus. Food for thought...

A' Type 1' sailed eider and an extremely dark 'Iceland' Gull

Sailed eider from yesterday! What an absolute stunner. This is what we are currently referring to as a 'type 1' sailed eider (combining large pointed sails with an orangy bill).

Displaying.

In comparison with molissima

Another fascinating bird from Peterhead yesterday. Although it has dark outer webs to the primaries (i.e. just like a Kumliens), this pattern extends inwards all the way to P1 and is actually a touch stronger on the inner than the outer feathers. The problem is working out whether the outer feathers are faded more than the inner ones (which you would expect, given how wings fold) and hence whether it would have shown the full kumlien's pattern when fresh (outer prims with darker outer webs then the inner primaries) . No doubt many Kums in NF are looking like this at the moment. What a great bird to puzzle through. Maybe I'm too critical and conservative? Comments welcome!

A close up of its primaries - how did we cope before digital cameras!

11th International Gull Meeting, Zagreb

Many many thanks to Luka Jurinovic and his team for organising what was a highly succesful IGM. The talks were most enlightening, the rubbush dump was full of gulls, the delegates were a great bunch of enthusiastic, knowledgeable and helpful people, and the food was superb; thanks Luka. Here we all are (above) on Zagreb dump.

Caspians of all ages were present - here are some examples

For the ringers, there was an opportunity to catch some great birds....

michahellis...mmm....seems to be....

.....but look at this P10 tip and tongue...more on such birds later.....

Iceland Gulls and a dark Herring

All these birds are from Peterhead at the weekend. Above is a dark bodied Herring Gull; dark bodied birds are not uncommon, but this bird is not only dark, but the dark tones are rather velvety, giving it a 'Neararctic feel', and contrasts with the pale head. Otherwise it is a normal Herring Gull (in terms of tail pattern etc).

Numbers of Iceland Gulls have dropped off (around 10 were present) but still impressive. All the remaining shots show a selection of individuals present at the weekend.

Despite the shadowing in the primaries, this is a glaucoides.

Tesco 47 p per loaf bread has been a winner during the white-winged invasion. At the peak 0f the invasion a couple of weeks ago the ratio was more than 1 white-winged gull for every loaf used (averaging 20 loaves per weekend). The peak is over, birds appear to be moving off and now im only seeing around 12 white-wings for my 20 loaves - so ratio poorer than 1:1 :)

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?