Monday, 31 August 2015

Waders and gulls, piles of them

A good morning at Palace with the hoped for Curlew Sand, Little Stint again, an Iceland Gull in amongst heaps of gulls, and various problematical things...

Curlew Sand at back

Little Stint, juv

Adult Turnstone

Juv Turnstone

Adult Knot at front, juvs behind

Juv Knot

Gull scrum

Iceland Gull peeking

The 3cy Ice

Ice again

This thing proved problematic for a while, especially as I mis-aged it. With a bit of help I think it is a 2cy leucistic herring Gull but it was a confusing beast.

Herring Gulls, leucistic 2cy and adult

Leucistic 2cy Herring Gull

Looks like a herring Gull in this picture

Looks a bit more confusing here

This thing was also a bit confusing, 3cy argentatus I think,



All three above 3cy argentatus Herring Gull

3 comments:

Simon Douglas Thompson said...

It amazes me that people like you can spot these gulls. To me it's "White gull....blotchy gull...very blotchy gull"

unclefish said...

Not 2CY Iceland?

Alastair said...

I hummed and haaed about the Ice but best fit seemed to be 3cy having poured over the book. However, revisiting it now I suspect you are correct, lack of grey in the mantle would tend towards 2cy, the photos don't show well that it did not have grey in the mantle. I would have thought a dark eye would be 2cy but not according to Olsen and Larsson, plate 256. I think the summer is a tricky time for aging gulls, especially things that I'm not so familiar with at that time of year, like Ice. I still think it could be a 3cy but safer bet is a 2. Had a good day for birds, bad day for gull aging and id.