Sunday, 20 May 2012

Imm. Gulls in May - argghhhhh!

Hundreds of gulls in the fields at Glanwydden thsi evening folliwng a plough and roosting at tech fields. Good mix of Herring gulls and Lesser black backed Gulls with the odd interesting bird thrown in. What do you make of this one? Long winged and Herring Gull sized, dark mantle, dark tertials, very white head and chest, dusky underwing and belly, very contrasting tail band, no pale panel on inner primaries in flight or dark bar along secondaries, very dark thickish bill....
This bird also interesting. Again quite dark mantled, very dark terials and a dark set of greater coverts, white head and dark smudge behind eye, all dark bill, nice shawl...
Yellow legged Gull? Large Lesser black backed? Within the variation of Herring Gull? Comments much appreciated.....

1 comment:

  1. Hi Mark. I have just come back from Spain and must admit that I did see a lot of immature YLGs that looked very much like this! I think moult/sunnier weather in spain bleached the birds a little though as quite a lot seemed paler than this, however the Head looks pretty good as does the naps and 'collar' streaking. The contrastingly dark tertials and tail seem pretty good, as does the slight pale window in the inner primaries and the pale rump (I would have thought that by now, Herring would show a much more obvious window in the primaries? Could be wrong. The only think that currently doesn't add up to me right now is the apparant dark underwing...

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