Argentatus Herring Gulls at Alnwickhill

It has all been happening at Alnwickhill over the festive period. The lack of workmen on site has tempted back a flock of 90 Lapwing along with a variety of wildfowl including Canada Geese, Mute Swans and 7 Goosander. After a couple of days of gales, when the best I could manage was a colour-ringed Herring Gull (green-white-green on right leg - maybe from a Glasgow project?), today's calm conditions brought the gulls down in droves to bathe. A very brief visit this morning gave views of a 2CY Common Gull with dark markings on the tail and tertials - an uncommon plumage type that I don't think I have seen before.

This afternoon I had a little more time and was treated to squadrons of Herring Gulls dropping in to bathe in the nearest pool - not something they do very often and I think it is possibly related to wind direction. In amongst these I managed to pick out a couple of individuals showing the thayeri pattern on P9 as well as a couple of darker individuals with much white in the primaries - presumably northern argentatus Herring Gulls. In addition there were plenty of Common Gulls and Black-headed Gulls, as well as single Great Black-backed and Lesser Black-backed Gulls.

Biggest puzzler was the following bird which resembled a hybrid Herring Gull x Lesser Black-backed Gull but on reflection must be a subadult northern argentatus Herring Gull. One difficulty with its identification is that these northern Herring Gulls normally have a restricted amount of black in the primaries but this bird has black markings extending to P5. Of course this may be normal for birds of this age. It may, of course, be a darker than normal southern argentatus.

Obviously it is the upper bird in the first photo, which shows a pale mantled argenteus Herring Gull in front. The second picture shows the spread wingtip pattern.

The underwing can be seen in the shot below and this is followed by another shot of the bird on the water bathing with a Herring Gull.

Finally, some shots of the bird perched with argenteus Herring Gulls. Notice that the contrast between them and the argentatus appears less. In the last shot the difference between the two gulls does seem to be appropriate for northern argentatus and local argenteus.

Thanks to feedback from Stephen W and Andy (tittletattler) on BirdForum on this bird.

Here are some other pictures taken at Alnwickhill today:

Lesser Black-backed Gull (note the Black-headed Gull advancing into breeding plumage in the foreground - not the full hood it looks like from this angle but half-way there)

adult northern argentatus Herring Gull (much white on wingtips and darker upper parts than bird to its right)









thayeri-pattern Herring Gulls - two different individuals both with thayeri pattern on P9 (not quite visible in upperwing shot)

Lapwing

 Goosander (left of centre) and preening Great Black-backed Gull (far right, honest!)

 Grey Heron, Mute Swans and Canada Geese

Not a bad haul for Alnwickhill!

White Christmas: adult Med Gull at Alnwickhill

Another quick trip up to Alnwickhill pays off with an unringed adult winter Mediterranean Gull dropping in to bathe and loaf around with around 100 Black-headed Gulls. Fantastically white winged in flight, the Med Gull has to rank as one of my favourite species; watching it float around in the blustery wind after bathing was particularly enjoyable - particularly as this was the trip to try out the Opticron HDF eyepiece with the Kowa TSN4 scope body. A stunning optical improvement just in time for a stunning gull.

Other Alnwickhill news is that the 5 Canada Geese and 1 hybrid Canada x Greylag Goose have been replaced overnight by 7 Greylag Geese!

Hartlaub's Gull at Robben Island

I was trawling through some pictures from a 2007 trip to South Africa and found a picture of this Hartlaub's Gull taken on Robben Island off Cape Town. I had forgotten that I had kept a shot of this species as gulls are clearly not the main focus of attention of any visit to Robben Island - the tour from a former inmate was an unforgettably moving experience and the shot below captures some of the grim reality for those imprisoned on the island.

On return to Cape Town, these sealions provided much needed light relief after an intense day focusing on human resilience in the face of oppression.

Another first winter Iceland Gull at Alnwickhill

I was grilling the Common Gulls at Alnwickhill this morning trying to re-find yesterday's rosy individual when a 'white-winger' caught my eye. Well, I have never managed to see very many Iceland Gulls, so I was really delighted when the white shape turned into the second 1st winter Iceland Gull for Alnwickhill this year.

Today's bird was distinctly darker and greyer than the March bird. In particular its flight feathers seemed to have a greyish wash across them and dark subterminal markings. I could not detect any real contrast between the outer primaries and the inner primaries so I do not think that Kumlien's Gull is a real possibility, but nevertheless it is not the most straightforward glaucoides Iceland Gull either. That said, the strong light this morning was playing havoc with both my camera's and my eyes' abilities to resolve subtle shades. Not that I am complaining that the sun is out in December of course...

Not so rosy

Had a quick check for ringed gulls at Alnwickhill this morning. Instead saw this unfortunate Black-headed Gull on one of the walls. It is not uncommon, of course, for gulls to have damaged legs or missing feet - injury due to predation or accident possibly.

Note the evidence in the photograph above of the Canada Geese that have taken up residence at the water works for the last week or so. Pic below from last weekend.

Most unusual sight today was a rose-flushed Common Gull. Too distant to make out any colour difference with the SLR, but clearly nicely pink through the scope. First one seen since last winter's bird, and it looked oddly apricot in the photographs - see here and here. Maybe I'll get a shot of it tomorrow. This pink flush is common in some gulls, but apparently relatively rare in Common Gull.

Edit 31/1/12: Just found this picture of a rosy Common Gull on a Norwegian blog: http://oslobirder.blogspot.com/2012/01/finallymed-gull.html

Blackbird in the garden

For once a photo that is not overly cropped or obviously out of focus. Mind you I did not set out to capture an image of this Blackbird - I was shooting this Common Gull on a nearby rooftop at the time. Those long drooping wings were giving me a bit of a heinei vibe... but sadly the bird was lacking a Russian colour ring! Of course, there are currently no acceptable field criteria for the identification of this form, although I see that Chris Gibbins is presenting a paper on this topic at the forthcoming International Gull Meeting. If only I could get myself to Zagreb in February...

1st winter Herring Gull: tail bands

A 1st winter Herring Gull with a nicely marked tail, photographed at Musselburgh last weekend. Not a terribly uncommon pattern, but striking in flight nonetheless.

Interesting grey goose at Musselburgh?

Well everyone is up to it this winter - reporting interesting grey geese in Lothian and elsewhere on the east coast. There seem to be Tundra and Taiga Bean Geese, European and Greenland Whitefronts all over the place. It seems that any decent flock of Pink-footed Geese is likely to hold a few of these other species at the moment. Me - well I have been having trouble finding any Pink-feet on the deck - plenty of skeins knocking about but no feeding flock in scope range. Instead I'll have to content myself with this 'interesting grey goose' at Musselburgh on Sunday - an ever-so-slightly leucistic Canada Goose. Does that count?

Unsuccessful predation of Common Redshank by Crow

I watched this Carrion Crow swoop onto a Common Redshank in the shallows of the River Esk mouth at Musselburgh this morning. After a brief struggle the wader escaped leaving these feathers behind. Undeterred, this and other Crows continued to try to surprise waders although there were no further captures witnessed.

I managed another Snow Bunting, this time along the sea wall. There have been two along here recently. This bird, with its clean breast and pale looking rump is probably of the Scandinavian subspecies.



Other highlights included a nice white-winged Mediterranean Gull on the scrape. This area is possibly destined to becoming designated a Local Nature Reserve. This would be excellent news. If so, I wondered whether the vandalised sea-watching shelters and hide bench will be repaired, and noted that the water is low in some of the scrapes as the pump is out of action. I have no idea whether that is due to vandalism. Certainly there seems to have been repeated abuse of the facilities at this site over the years. The destruction of the sea-watching shelters does not look like typical vandalism to me - more like an act of deliberate and thorough destruction. Of course there is more to worry about than the destruction of visitor facilities perhaps. I was particularly frustrated today to see the unnecessary flushing of waders, wildfowl and gulls today by dogs... grrr. Grrrr, indeed!

Winter warmer for blog birthday

Well that is a year of Morgithology blog posting - 150 posts in 365 days ain't bad. The blog has not quite ended up doing what I orginally intended. Even the casual reader may have noted that there isn't much about the ecology of Lothian. Instead random musings on the identification of poorly photographed gulls. Well, if you are one of the few reading this then you must like it - or maybe you followed a bad link... Either way, since the weather has turned decidedly chilly over the last few days here are some pics of Provencal birds, photographed in the sweltering heat of Mediterranean July: Great Spotted Cuckoo, Bee-eater, Alpine Swift and Roller. Don't worry, I am keeping true to form - none is in focus...