Axe Birding: juvenile lesser black-backed gull

Thursday, 8 December 2011

Good For Gulls

I only had time today for a quick look along the Estuary, at about mid afternoon. There were very few small gulls, but a decent number of large gulls. So many that I just had to count them!

The 258 Great Black-backed Gulls included this Glaucous wannabe...

I've not seen this bird before

And the 35 Lesser Black-backed Gulls included two intermedius candidates.

Here's a couple of photos showing standard graellsii Lesser Black-backed Gulls...

Two lots of two, notice the difference between them and the Great Black-backed Gulls, and also the difference in colour between the birds' mantle and primaries

And here are the two intermedius (type!?) Lesser Black-backed Gulls... (as ever, you can click on the photos to enlarge them)

Pretty striking really

But there are 'in between' birds, like this one...

This one was ringed too!

These birds are still essentially grey though - not black like the two above. My gut feeling is these are male (and possibly older?) graellsii.

I have already tracked down where this bird was ringed - in the Bristol area. I'm looking forward to learning how old it is and maybe even its sex, will it prove to be an old male??

Wouldn't it be great to find a ringed intermedius! Maybe one day...

Sunday, 17 July 2011

Gulls Go To Tesco

I've had a look through the gull roost at the Tesco site at least once every late afternoon/early evening for the last four days, you get really excellent views of the roosting gulls from behind Seaton Garage on the Riverside Industrial Estate. I wish I had cottoned on to this place sooner though - I bet it was covered in Wheatears during the spring!

Anyway, last night there was our first juv Yellow-legged Gull of the autumn - a very well marked bird indeed.

Tonight, there was another one, an absolute BRUTE of a bird...