Wednesday 20th January 2010
Having not learnt a great deal from various Gull books, I resorted to Alan Dean's website for the definitive comparison between Yellow legged Gull and Caspian Gull. Certainly the Brandon bird did show some features of Caspian but having looked at other features highlighted by Alan such as posture, brightness of the bill, stocky appearance, and 'robust' head, I'm more certain that the gull is indeed a Yellow legged Gull. If I struggle to nail adult birds then I know I'm never going to come to terms with younger birds but I aint going to worry too much about that. Lets win one battle at a time. Which reminds me, only 15 minutes to kick off, 'bout time the claret and blues achieved something.
Dismal sort of day for Birding so a bit of hide work was called for around Ladywalk, Lea Marston, and Whitacre Heath managed 1 Lesser Redpoll, 3 Willow tit, Blackcap, 2 Sparrowhawk, 2 Greater spotted Woodpeckers and that was about it. Should have stayed at home and done my homework on ' The identification of the larger Gulls'.
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At least we got a result at fooball. 7-4
ReplyDeleteHi Steve, Great result but I had my doubts early on. Hope all is well with you.
ReplyDeleteLooks more like a Herring to me (sorry Bob). Wrong structure and bill for caspian and not enough black in the primaries for YL Gull. Legs look rather pink as well.
ReplyDeleteHi Bob,would agree with Lee J on this one!
ReplyDeleteCome over to the dark side(Ok Leicestershire) and I will show you some Caspians at Shawell Balancing Lake!
Cheers,
Dave.
Ps Found the Ring-billed Gull there this afternoon!!