One Year Old

26th March 2014 - Topsham

The Two Bird Theory is now one year old, and what better way to celebrate this minor milestone than with a nice gull?

But before I get to that here's one of my better photos of a Curlew and an action shot of a Little Egret, both taken yesterday at The Rec while I was waiting for a certain gull to fly.

Curlew - 26/3/2014 Topsham

Little Egret - 26/3/2014 Topsham

Now down to the real business of the day - a first winter/2nd calendar year* Yellow-legged Gull. I've seen this individual a couple of times over the last two days, it immediately got my interest but views were distant and brief, only this morning was I able to see it well enough to pin it down as a michahellis.

Yellow-legged Gull - 26/3/2014 Topsham

 On this view alone it already looks a good michahellis candidate, white-headed with dark eye-patch, hefty dark bill and long legs. It's now a question of checking the rest of the bird.

Yellow-legged Gull - 26/3/2014 Topsham

 Finely streaked neck, whitish body with sparse dark markings. Tertials dark centred without apparent barring or notching but very worn and faded. Scapulars broadly pale-tipped with the remains of fine dark anchor marks. No obvious replaced tertials or coverts but if present, these may by now be indistinguishable from juvenile feathers at this distance.

Yellow-legged Gull - 26/3/2014 Topsham

 Upper wing with moderately dark inner primaries, looking pale on some views but at least the outer webs are dark. Underwing quite dark and no obvious pale primary window. Upper and under tail coverts are a little heavily barred and the outer tail feathers are a little dark for classic michahellis but within the range. Taken as a whole this can't be anything else.

Yellow-legged Gull - 26/3/2014 Topsham

Yellow-legged Gull - 26/3/2014 Topsham

* Just when does a 1st Winter become a 1st Summer? I'm seriously considering adopting the plumage cycle terminology as advocated by Steve Howell. This bird would then be a first cycle Yellow-legged Gull. More on this at a later date, no doubt.

Mostly Juveniles

9th - 17th July 2013 - Topsham

There is, of course, a down side to the current bout of what I hear is called 'summer'. On the Exe at Topsham Recreation Ground gull numbers are highest during afternoon and evening low tides when they drop in to bathe, preen and rest. Right now this means looking west with bright sun behind the birds - deep shadows and blown out whites and generally pretty frustrating. Although I don't think I'm missing out on much, I can only assume that the really good birds - like a nice juv Caspian Gull? - are waiting for the bright overcast days when their photos will look much nicer.

Wader passage is slight, a single Green Sandpiper, a few Curlews and a handful of Common Sandpipers (one of 15 on the 17th shown above). More of interest to me right now are the juvenile gulls. The first to arrive were the Black-headed Gulls, showing a few variations on the basic pattern - dark scapulars with neat pale fringes, and a dusky head with a dark 'shawl' - most are fairly brown on the mantle but a few are almost black. The second bird appears to have already moulted a few smaller scapulars and median and lesser coverts.

Then the first of this year's Herring Gulls showed up, barely out of the nest and still growing their outer primaries. Mostly pretty straightforward with their sandy brown tones, well notched tertials and pale inner primaries.

And a few Lesser Black-backed for comparison. Generally darker and often much less brown than Herring (though the light can alter that dramatically). Classic thin tertial fringes and more solidly darker outer greater coverts easy to see on the first two, and the dark inner primaries is the clincher.

And maybe it's cheating but here's an ID feature not mentioned in the books - these youngsters are still at least partly dependent on their parents for dinner. Easy now, aren't they?

Surprising as it may seem, there are birds other than gulls, here's an egret with yellow legs. Could this really be mistaken for a Cattle Egret?

Meanwhile, I'm still waiting for one of these...

Here's one I made earlier

Just for the sake of posting something different; here's a watercolour sketch I did last year of a Little Egret hunting fish in the Exe at Topsham.