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...

Herring Gull predating Gannet egg

Two of my favourite Herring Gull shots here - both of the same individual predating a Gannet egg on Bass Rock, East Lothian, in July 2007. A photographer who had shown great fieldcraft to get some close-up shots of nesting Gannets moved away from the spot too quickly and accidentally scared one of the nesting birds off its egg. As the photographer retreated embarrassed from the scene I thought I would get a shot of the Gannet returning to its nest. Within seconds however this Herring Gull had checked out the scene and then landed. It scooped the egg up deftly, turned for the portrait and then was off within 20 seconds of landing. Not great shots for a Gannet fan perhaps, but a fantastic demonstration of the opportunistic scavenging habits of this equally stunning, but less loved, species.

Lammermuirs: Red Grouse and Snow Buntings

Decided to head for the Lammermuir hills in East Lothian this morning on the off chance of bumping into a Rough-legged Buzzard or Great Grey Shrike. Managed neither of course although there were good numbers of Red Grouse in evidence along the roadsides. The above bird looked like a straightforward female and the bird below, which was with it made me wonder whether 1st winter birds are separable at this time of year. Anyone know?

The Lammermuir Hills are highly managed for Red Grouse.
This shot, taken today and which you may not wish to look at too closely, shows a Brown Rat caught in a fenn trap placed on a pole crossing the burn at Johnscleugh. I am not a big fan of this sort of trapping with a low degree of discrimination.

Highlights of the trip for me were more encounters with Snow Buntings. These three shown below were seen feeding along the roadside on the way to and from Faseny Bridge. The shot below illustrates how dark the back, rump and uppertail coverts can be in 1st winter individuals of this species. There is certainly no way these birds would be considered to be nivalis. Instead they are the commoner subspecies insulae. I also saw another larger flock along the road to Garvald. I certainly feel in credit with Snow Buntings this year as I have chanced upon several. Hope that keeps happening...

Olympic Gull: Glaucous-winged x Western Gull

Following on from the Western Gull pictures in the last post, here is a shot of an Olympic Gull taken along 17-mile drive in California. The Olympic Gull is a hybrid between Glaucous-winged and Western Gull, and according to this abstract has greater fitness than either parental form. I suppose F1 hybrids are well-known for their vigor in garden plant varieties. This individual matches those that are assumed to be a second generation hybrid, as the wing tips are only a shade darker than the upperparts but the bill is heavy and quite orange in colour. So, quite possibly, it is a Glaucous-winged x Olympic Gull hybrid...

As for this bird, photographed on Santa Monica beach, take your pick - but it definitely has a fair number of Glaucous-winged Gull genes in it. Whether it is a pure bird or not is beyond me... Any ideas?

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.0014-3820.2000.tb00721.x/abstract

Western Gulls

Flicking through some pictures today of a trip to California in April 2010, this shot of a Western Gull with Northern Elephant Seals basking in the background, caught my eye. Since days are short and work is busy, I thought I would post it up along with a few other Western Gull shots.

The above individual, photographed in Los Angeles, is of the darker-backed occidentalis subspecies. The strong sunlight is reducing the apparent depth of the upperpart colouration.

Big Sir at Big Sur, perhaps...

Not the best shot, admittedly, but this is probably a lighter-mantled wymani from Monterey.

I realise that they get paler further north, but this individual from San Francisco was a tad extreme...