Blue Fulmar in the Pentland Firth

I have been lucky enough to be visiting various of the Orkney islands for the past fortnight. Always a fantastic archipelago - packed with outstanding wildlife, archaeology and scenery - the weather was not the kindest this year and as it was a work visit I was unable to make the most of the birding on offer. For example I missed out on the phenomenal passage of Long-tailed Skuas last week despite being on Westray at the time... not to mention the Garganeys, White-billed Diver, Red-backed Shrikes, etc. Next time?...

Here is my best sighting of the fortnight - a blue Fulmar - an intermediate/dark morph of our Northern Fulmar. Only my fourth sighting of this form, I was pleased to get these record shots as the bird passed the ferry back to mainland Scotland, especially since I failed to get any shots of a probable at Seafield earlier this year.

Fulmars at Skara Brae

This pair of Fulmars has taken up residence on Skara Brae, Orkney. Hopefully visitors will be informed about their oil-spitting antics before approaching too closely for photos...

Northern Fulmar plumage variation

For fear of getting doused in foul-smelling vomit, I didn't fancy getting too close to this young Northern Fulmar on North Ronaldsay, Orkney, in August 2009. As is often the case with the less-appealing types of baby birds, they do tend to mature into beautiful adult birds.

Here are a series of adults photographed from Burness on Sanday a few days before. These birds are all of the typical double-light plumage morph, but I have organised them from darkest to palest. From these pictures it looks as though feather wear may be responsible for at least part of this variation.

Last September I was lucky enough to have an opportunity to snatch some photographs of a 'blue' morph Northern Fulmar while on a pelagic trip off Newcastle (this bird is probably best considered a light morph or intermediate morph; the terminology is confusing in a UK context because blue fulmars are darker than our normal double-light birds but are still considered light in comparison with darker northern birds). This is the best shot, and as you can see it is not the clearest. I really wish that I had asked for the boat to turn to get a second look at this bird, but at the time thought that no-one else was likely to be that interested. Also, I was slightly skeptical that it was a 'real one', but have since found out that there appear to be a small number of resident birds in the North East of this plumage morph. Oh well, I'll get better shots, and, more importantly a better look, next time.

Nice bird? Well, it looked pretty neat in real life, and had quite a grey-blue hue to its head, neck and flanks, and in flight it looked really good, but it is not as dark as more northerly blue fulmars (dark and double-dark morph birds). Note the much heavier marking across the bill, which is typical in the blue fulmar. I managed to pick up another blue fulmar (light/intermediate morph) while seawatching off Buness, Fair Isle, in October and am now quite a fan of them. I must remember to have a look out for one off Lothian over the next few weeks.

On the same pelagic trip there was significant variation in the appearance of the regular morph birds. In the next shot, the rear bird has heavily abraded or moulting coverts (maybe a sign of a failed breeder moulting early) and a yellowish tone to the white head and body feathers, which is quite common.

The bird in the foreground seemed substantially paler in the field and I think the whiteness of its head, body and tail is quite striking. This bird may be similar to the palest bird in the flight shots above. I wonder how different these birds would be to the triple-light morph, which may or may not exist. On the other hand, I think it is possible that they have abraded tail feathers that appear whiter than normal. Anyone know?

Finally, here is another bird with quite serious primary moult. According to BWP, primary moult occurs in rapid succession but growth of outer primaries is slow. That, I think, hits the nail on the head - only a couple more primaries to lose on that left wing, but the new ones have got some catching up to do...

Gulls: no-show Norwegian and Iceland

A quick trip up the road to Alnwickhill water treatment works turned in to a long stake-out today. Soon after I arrived one of my target birds dropped in to my field of view - a colour-ringed Common Gull! For most folk, this would probably not be the most exciting of events, but it is something I have been actively looking for locally over the last couple of months. Today's bird had a white ring with black lettering, but frustratingly it moved out of view just as rapidly as it appeared and I could not be sure of the combination. I'm fairly confident that the first letter was 'J', which could indicate that it was ringed in Norway. Three cold hours later the bird still hadn't returned and I returned home disappointed, but with the consolation of having seen my first Linnets and Lesser Black-backed Gull of the year, as well as some less regular species at the site: Great Black-backed Gulls, Goldeneye and four Waxwings.

Once home I found out that I had been watching the wrong Edinburgh water-bodies this weekend - a first winter Iceland Gull had been seen since Friday at Dunsapie and St Margaret's Loch in Holyrood Park. With the light beginning to fade I decided that it might just be worth the couple of mile trip up to St Margaret's. By the time I arrived, most gulls had flown to roost and only a handful of Black-headed Gulls were still at the loch in the twilight. Never mind, it will probably return, so I read some Mute Swan colour rings in the fading light.

As I returned through the park, I paused to photograph the sunset and was pleased to notice that there was a Northern Fulmar high up over Our Dynamic Earth. Another appeared and the two birds began chasing and interacting like a pair of giant swifts careering through the twilight. It may have been cold, but it was a warming reminder that spring is not far away.