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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

gulls (1 Viewer)

And the LAST five pics taken on February 18th (I'm happy to finish with this...).
 

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yupp, a very advanced cach - shows again that advanced postjuvenile moult is not a good mich pointer as opposed to cach which i think is equally variable in this respect. and the same bird is striated around the eye giving it a soft "smudge" - but note pencil fine brownish streaks.
 
Hello all,
still loads of pics from February, all taken in Herastrau... thought it would be easier to make a Picasa account to share my photos - they are resized however, so if there are any birds which grab your attention, let me know and I can crop/provide higher res. IF anyone is brave enough, could they please comment the the age/species for some of the harder birds to confirm for me - think Picasa will allow comments? Enjoy!

https://picasaweb.google.com/113737058989145476854/HerastrauGulls#

Cheers,
 
Excellent shots James! At a first/quick view all seem to be Caspian Gulls. In the pics with flocks could be very well some Yellow-legged Gulls among Caspian Gulls, but where are one or two birds in the frame I see only Caspian Gulls.
 
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Odd Iceland

I posted this in the ID section and not surprisingly got only one reply. The finder has done a word doc up and would welcome some input.

Regards

John
 

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Herastrau, March 2nd 2012. Same bird in pics 4 and 5.
 

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Thanks! Indeed, it was weird seeing so very few yellow-legged in Herastrau... although on the 10th there was a small flock mostly of YLG (pic 92-103 especially), but very few mixed in elsewhere. I'm missing the action back on the ice, instead stuck with our ice-cream eating herrings here in Somerset!

An unrelated question: at school we are still taught that the herring gull complex is one of the best examples of a ring species - but this was dis-proven a while ago wasn't it? Or at least not yet? A better example would be the greenish warbler surely? Too many questions haa.
 
an old myth that never dies out in biology class.
mayr's ring sp. model with the argentatus-complex as classic example.
this is what helbig and liebers suggest in their work, which i myself would call 'classic', meanwhile:

you might just print this document and show it your biology teacher 8-P - the two hypothesis are mapped on the 2nd page.
 

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Common Gull.

This adult winter Common Gull photographed this afternoon on the North Cornwall coast, appeared to be unusually large and dark mantled (photographed in strong light) for a Common Gull, almost as large as the smallest Herring Gull in the group of Gulls accompanying it, yet the bill looked quite small and slender, the wing-tip pattern shows black on 7 primaries and conspicuous white moons to mid-primaries. Can anyone assign a probable race based on these images?

Colin
 

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hi colin,

usually size is extremely difficult to assign in field. the two contenders here, nominate canus and heinei usually are separated in hand by measurements. but of course heinei (the eastern subsp.) is larger and darker. there is considerable overlap though and an out of range heinei would be really hard to prove.
 
Herastrau. March 2nd 2012.
 

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Herastrau, March 7th. The aggressor is a 2cy cachinnans, but what's your opinion about the aggressed bird?
 

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A strange right wing (first 4 pics, in the 5th pic an usual adult bird) - Herastrau, March 11th.
 

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