Third-winter Glaucous Gull

I am just four colour-rings short of recording 500 individual colour-ringed gulls at Shawell. This morning I chanced my arm and headed off to Shawell. The landfill is shut on Sunday, but sometimes there is still loads of gulls in the area. Not this morning, but there was about fifty gulls, mainly GBBGs, feeding amongst the rubbish still exposed on the tipping area. I set up my scope and started to search amongst them and a very pale gull flew threw my view. I panned after it and fortunately it landed just to the left. It was a third-winter Glaucous Gull. This is good as it demonstrates what a third-winter should look like after suggestions the one I found last Tuesday might be a third-winter. It is quite adult like, but the bill is still very immature looking.

The area where the gulls were feeding was quite distant, so I could only get poor quality record shots.

Third-winter Glaucous Gull, Cotesbach LF Site, 25/01/15

Bloody Buzzards!

Today at Shawell Common Buzzards were causing havoc. The gulls would not settle, as the local buzzards were insisting on flying low over the lagoons on a frequent basis. A fox also got in on the act by trying to sneak up on the gulls. As a result the gulls would not settle and fewer stayed at the site. I may have to declare the site a no fly zone for buzzards. One cheeky so and so was perched in the hedge overlooking the bank the gulls rest on and it didn't notice me until I was virtually standing next to it!

Nevertheless at least two third-winter Caspian Gulls put in appearances and the big white Glaucous Gull was there for a short while (seen later at the landfill site).

Third-winter Caspian Gull, Shawell A5 Lagoons - also seen on January 10th

Second-winter Glaucous Gull, Shawell A5 Lagoons

Herring Gull Showing Some Characters of Thayer's Gull

Last thing this afternoon I took a look at Cotesbach landfill site from Gibbet Lane. The Glaucous Gull that I first saw last Tuesday was loafing around there and amongst the gulls I spotted a young gull, which grabbed my attention. It was a juvenile/first-winter type and it had very pale underwings. Compared to the other first-winter Herring Gulls nearby it looked paler and more juvenile like. The light was dreadful at this point, but I did manage to take a few photos, but it was distant and I needed to crank up the ISO setting on my camera up to 1600.

The outer primaries appear to be very similar to what is expected of a Thayer's Gull in juvenile plumage - dark outer webs contrasting with paler inner webs. On the closed wing the primaries looked to be striped created by the pale inner and dark outer web.

A Very Immature Herring Gull - With an Interesting Primary Pattern

Put the Gulls on Ice

Tuesday January 20th turned out to be an excellent day for viewing gulls at Shawell A5 Lagoons. The gulls had gathered on ice, which had formed on the lagoon. The views were great and the gulls were close enough to get some reasonable images.

An adult Caspian Gull stood at the back of the pack and spent nearly all the time hunched up. It flapped its wings just the once but it held its wings open after the last flap and revealed a text book primary pattern. Its eyes were a brown colour and its legs were greyish pink.

Hunched Up Adult Caspian Gull

A Tricky Caspian Gull

On January 20th I found a gull at Shawell A5 Lagoons, which I initially identified as a Caspian Gull, but I was concerned that its mantle was a bit too dark and that it still had many juvenile feathers. The series of photographs below, show most of the features and as you can see the mantle looks darker than shown by typical Caspian Gulls of this age and at this time of year. It is really interesting to see that it still has some juvenile rear scapulars and all the greater coverts are first generation. This is not typical for a first-winter Caspian Gull in January. I considered Heughlin's Gull, but I couldn't make a strong case for that as on the upperwing there is a pale area on the inner primaries, which Heughlin's shouldn't really show and the underwings are very pale.

First-winter Caspian Gull, Shawell A5 Lagoons