More Caspian Gull Stuff

I had to work all last weekend, but fortunately I was off yesterday, as I needed a change of scenery. I spent the morning holding my car's hand whilst it was serviced and then took it for a test drive up the A5 to Shawell A5 Lagoons.

Winter now appears to be here judging by the masses of gulls that were present around Shawell. Hopefully the first white-winger will arrive soon.

Many gulls were congregated around the lagoons including three Caspian Gulls. A new third-winter and two that I've seen previously.

Third-winter Caspian Gull

The third-winter was a smallish gull and its eyes were quite pale, but other than that it was an obvious Caspian. On the water it had the typical profile: long bodied and winged plus it sat low on the water. On land it had nice long thin spindly legs.

The others were an adult I had already seen a couple of times and the sub-adult that I saw on the 22nd.

The adult was the last to appear, but it showed very well. I had already seen this one on both the 18th and 22nd. Both previous times I failed to see the pattern on P5, but this time I saw it well and it had a dark marking across the feather. This gull scores very well on the trait scoring scheme and is without doubt a pure Caspian Gull. The wings look a little short in the photo below, but that is the angle of the bird and also the longest primary feather is still growing.

Adult Caspian Gull

Adult Caspian Gull