Thursday 12 April 2012

'yellow legged' argenteus Herring Gull?

While watching the thousands of gulls at Newquay Fish Quay (Martin Garner Gull Day coming here next winter), Arfon Williams and I came across this apparent 'argenteus' Herring Gull with bright yellow legs. Pumped up on hormones? distant Lesser black backed Gull ancestors? Anyone seen anything similar before?

4 comments:

  1. Marc - you're still gulling!!!

    Mmmm... interestuing beast. Looks quite dark mantled to me.

    I remember about 10 years ago there was a HUGE flock of gulls around some mucky fields in the Bodorgan/Aberffraw area of Anglesey one winter. Think they were spreading waste dairy products or suchlike.

    I found a few weird things amongst the hordes of larids inc an apparent Glauc x Herring hybrid and a yellow-legged H Gull thingy. I put it down to an omissus type bird as thats all I could think of at the time.

    I've got the (truly awful) video somewhere on some old tapes - will have to dig it out and digitise it for a look.

    Good Birding

    A

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  2. Can't wait to see the vid Andy.
    Marc, If I saw that I would call it a Yellow legged Gull. What does Martin think? You mention LBBG ancestors? Wouldn't Herring/Yellow legged Gull be a more appropriate mixed race theory if any?

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  3. Fair point Steve. It didn't seem to have a Red orbital ring despite being in breeding attire. Would be great to see the video footage Andy. April is a good time for gulling Andy, so is the summer months when they are much ignored.

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  4. Same bird present again today. Identical to normal type argenteus apart from the leg colour, but I did notice that three or four other argenteus also had a yellowy tinge to their legs (but not as pronounced as this bird) - must be a breeding season thing. An ad Yellow-legged Gull was also briefly present and its upper parts were noticeable darker than the yellow-legged argenteus.

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