Over the weekend I visited Shawell twice. You may already have read my previous posting, so I won't go on about Sunday's adventures. A greater number of gulls were present at Shawell A5 lagoons on Saturday, the most numerous were Lesser Black-backed Gulls. Amongst them were a few gems. A couple of third calendar year Caspian Gulls provided much of the entertainment and two Yellow-legged Gulls were also paying a visit.
A pale winged gull was there during the afternoon. The initial excitement was short lived as this bird wasn't quite right. Its primaries were pale brown and the pattern on the coverts wasn't quite right for any of the real white-wingers. I have considered leucistic Herring Gull or Great Black-backed Gull, hybrid Glaucous x Herring Gull and maybe even a bit of Glaucous-winged Gull in the mix. The chaps at Draycote have seen it there and thought it was a leucistic Herring Gull, but structurally I didn't think it was quite right for a Herring Gull. It was pretty bulky with a large bill, but of course some Herring Gulls match those statistics - comments welcomed.
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| Third Calendar Year Caspian Gull |
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| Third Calendar Year Caspian Gull |
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| Fourth Calender Year Yellow-legged Gull |
A pale winged gull was there during the afternoon. The initial excitement was short lived as this bird wasn't quite right. Its primaries were pale brown and the pattern on the coverts wasn't quite right for any of the real white-wingers. I have considered leucistic Herring Gull or Great Black-backed Gull, hybrid Glaucous x Herring Gull and maybe even a bit of Glaucous-winged Gull in the mix. The chaps at Draycote have seen it there and thought it was a leucistic Herring Gull, but structurally I didn't think it was quite right for a Herring Gull. It was pretty bulky with a large bill, but of course some Herring Gulls match those statistics - comments welcomed.
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| Mystery Gull |
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| Mystery Gull |