Glaucous and Iceland Gulls

It was back to gulling today after the wonderful adventures in Scotland - I bet the hits on my blog go down now. At least these gulls come from the same region as the Snowy Owl.

Nevertheless it was a good day with the highlights being one of each Glaucous and Iceland Gull.

2nd-winter Glaucous Gull

I started the day at the Cotesbach landfill site where I found an Iceland Gull. The light was poor, but at least the forecasted fog and rain didn't materialise. Steve Lister joined me and he quickly found a 2nd-winter Glaucous Gull. Most of the approx. 2000 gulls headed away from the landfill and so we made our way to the Shawell A5 Lagoons. Luckily many of the gulls were there and the Iceland was amongst them. Steve and I debated the age and felt that the dark eye and the state of the plumage were consistant with an advanced juvenile / 1st-winter.

Iceland Gull

Dave Gray arrived after the Iceland Gull had departed, but we had a couple of hours where hybrids were the order of the day. First of all we had a Herring x LBB Gull, and then a couple of hybrid Caspian Gulls. One of them was a first winter, which appeared to be mostly ok, but we were concerned that it had very short wings for a Caspian Gull.

After Steve and Dave had left, the 2nd-winter Glaucous Gull appeared on the main lagoon and showed much better than earlier in the day.

Related Posts:

Glaucous Gull

Another Glaucous Gull