I called in at Shawell A5 Lagoons briefly today for my usual Wednesday lunchtime gull fix. On arrival the gull numbers were quite low, but they soon started to arrive on mass. I couldn't believe that amongst several thousand large gulls there were no Caspian Gulls. I was about to leave when I spotted a second-winter Casp. Just then Steve Nichols arrived and I told him what I'd got and gave him directions. As I gave a running commentary to Steve about what my bird was doing it became obvious we were not looking at the same gull. I panned slightly to the left and there was a first-winter Caspian Gull. This one may well be the same one that I first saw on
October 12th due to both of them appearing to show quite a lot of white on the median coverts. The Second-winter has some really nice P10 mirrors developing - a feature which should separate Caspian gulls at this age from Herring and Yellow-legged Gulls.
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| Second-Winter Caspian Gull, Shawell A5 Lagoons, November 2nd 2016 |
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| Second-Winter Caspian Gull, Shawell A5 Lagoons, November 2nd 2016 |
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| Second-Winter Caspian Gull, Shawell A5 Lagoons, November 2nd 2016 |
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| First-Winter Caspian Gull, Shawell A5 Lagoons, November 2nd 2016 |
Is it just me Carl or do the bills on them Caspian Gulls look a bit manky???
ReplyDeleteI think its just the poor quality of the digiscoped photos. The black and pink or yellowish is typical of a maturing Caspian Gulls bill. Caspian Gulls bills advance quite quickly. I also think the bright light is making the black look like its a bit oily. I don't think digiscope shots do justice to gulls bills anyway.
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