Saturday 21 February 2009

Gulls, Gulls, Gulls


After missing the last venture over to Arpley Landfill a fortnight ago (shetland) it was a good to be back amongst the 'experts' from Seaforth. Glad i put my thermals on also it was bloody cold with a westerly wind blowing across us. Apparently the first visit we made some 6 weeks or so ago, which was bloody freezing had a windchill of -10c. Not so bad this time thank god. Once in position the gulls gave good views albeit a bit distant, at least 4 Iceland Gulls (2w+3x1w) and 2 Yellow-legged Gulls (adults) showed well most of the morning, a possible 3w Caspian Gull gave all to brief views and not a Med or Glaucous Gull in sight ? When our stint at Arpley finnished a handful of us went over to Richmond Bank where 2 Iceland Gulls (from Arpley) showed well and my faux pa for the day was saying "is that a Kittiwake?" when in fact it was a Common Gull, dickhead ! But a great days learning and found out some very interesting news that i hope comes to fruition. Mega tick ?

4 comments:

Podster said...

If thats a flippin YLG i'm the pope, its got pink legs!!!!!!
Scousers eh!

Anonymous said...

mantles as dark as the ones below it as well, sure you photographed the right bird?

Jason said...

Pope Pete & Anonymous,

Have uploaded uncropped version, look closer. Mantle colour darkened when cropping photo but to my eyes still looks like a YLG anyway.

Cheers
Jason

Anonymous said...

Looks Ok for a yellow-legged gull to me.Some people can be surprised haow dark some Yellow-legs look and by how small they can be.the legs look yellow on my monitor..maybe Pope Petes monitor is faulty thats why he misidentifies most of the gulls he sees??