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

Glaucous Gull

I took a sneaky half day off from work this afternoon, as I had a hunch it was going to be good at Shawell. It turned out even better than I expected as the largest lagoon was partially frozen and most of the gulls were resting on the ice. I managed to get myself in position without flushing the gulls as they were very close to the side I was viewing from. With lots of legs on show it was inevitable that I would see a few colour rings, but it was white-wingers I was really after. It didn't take long for one to appear - a frosty looking Glaucous Gull - get in there! I have aged it as a second-winter, as it lacks any sign of adult like grey on the mantle and the underwings still have brown on them.

Second-winter Glaucous Gull

Aggressive Caspian Gull

At lunchtime today there was lots of gulls at Shawell A5 Lagoons and amongst them was an adult and third-winter Caspian Gull plus an adult which I think has a little bit of Herring Gull in the mix as well as Caspian Gull - mostly the latter.

The third-winter was a new bird although in the photograph it looks similar to the third-winter I saw on the 10th. It was bigger and more boisterous. In fact it was down right aggressive. It attacked any Herring Gull that happened to venture close to it. In the end it picked on the wrong one and got put firmly in its place.

Third-winter Caspian Gull Seeing Off an Herring Gull