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

gulls (3 Viewers)

Sorry Lou, forgot to add this photo of the immature bird. I'll have to take some sardines with me next time I go down to Lake Geneva and try and get the birds to come closer! Thanks as always,

Richard
 

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Small Herring Gull? Regent's Park, London

Hello all,

This gull has caused me a lot of confusion. I'm assuming it's just a small and dainty 2w Herring Gull. When I first saw this bird I reported it as a 'first-winter Ring-billed Gull (or hybrid)', but was advised that it is a Herring Gull based on some poor quality record shots. I can see now that it would be very atypical for RBG. Last week I got some better photos:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/94395072@N06/33173391276/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/94395072@N06/32400057033/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/94395072@N06/32370603324/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/94395072@N06/32370604524/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/94395072@N06/33214847635/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/94395072@N06/33173397556/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/94395072@N06/33214850415/

I'd be most grateful for your comments on this gull.

Many thanks,

Joe Taylor
 
Hello!

There is a place near Moscow (Biserovo fishery ponds) where all gull enthusiasts go. The most abundant spieces are Common Gulls, Black-headed Gulls, Herring Gulls and Caspian Gulls. Depending on the season and the luck one can see fuscus LBBG, Heuglin's Gulls and more rarely GBBG and Glaucous Gulls.

I suspect there should be 1cy Steppe Gulls (barabensis) in autumn. Is there a way to separate them from Caspian Gulls?
Also no-one registered YLGs, which seems strange. I suspect we just cannot single them out from huge flocks of Herring/Caspians

Here is the typical mixture of Herring and Caspian Gull, photographed in October
 

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GBBG with yellow-ish legs.

In the past week, here on the Camel Estuary in Cornwall, I have noticed at least 3 adult Great Black-Backed Gull (Larus marinus) with straw-yellow, some Greenish yellow legs. What do you think the most likely explanation for that could be? Hormonal mechanisms, hybrid of 'Larus michahellis' or 'Larus fuscus', or even hybrid 'Larus dominicanus' extending north?
 

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yellowish legged GBBG have occured ever since (in e.g. baltic sea they are a regular sight), but this year particularly there seems to be going on something in the north atlantic/north sea: colour ringed herring gulls which in other years had normal fleshy coloured legs this year show yellow legs as noted by some dutch birders. speculations goes towards nutrition with maize, but who knows what humans have have added somewhere in their feeding places.
 
lou salomon said:
yellowish legged GBBG have occured ever since (in e.g. baltic sea they are a regular sight), but this year particularly there seems to be going on something in the north atlantic/north sea: colour ringed herring gulls which in other years had normal fleshy coloured legs this year show yellow legs as noted by some dutch birders. speculations goes towards nutrition with maize, but who knows what humans have have added somewhere in their feeding places.
Click to expand...

Interesting stuff Lou, Thank you. I suppose that the leg colour is carotenoid-based, a parasite could be to blame.
 
no, this is a juv michahellis but i guess you've heard about that recent record of a young audouin's at kastoria lake in july? which is not that far away from you. and way more inland.
 
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