Birding on Krk (Croatia) with several mystery birds (1 Viewer)

Hello folks
I went on a herpetological field trip with friends to Krk island recently and managed to squeeze some birding in there too.
I am new to birding and also lack proper equipment, so there is quite a lot of uncertainty concerning the exact species of some of the birds. Some of them I am fairly sure, others I have no idea. Due to not knowing most bird songs, I also missed a lot of species. I am fairly sure I saw and heard a nightingale, but the picture I took is useless for ID.
Apart from these species, I also saw a lot of birds I could readily identify, among them highlights such as remarkably unafraid Eurasian jays, Common ravens and Griffon vultures.

Emberizidae?
http://pho.to/5K8yd/u5

Western marsh harrier (Circus aeruginosus)?
http://pho.to/5K8yd/q5
http://pho.to/5K8yd/ml

Silvia sp.?
http://pho.to/5K8yd/rt

Cormorant or European shag? Leaning towards cormorant but the lower bird seems to have a crest in the second pic
http://pho.to/5K8yd/9w
http://pho.to/5K8yd/79

Different locality, but again strongly leaning towards cormorant
http://pho.to/5K8yd/lz

Mediterranean gull? Pic probably not good enough to exclude similar species such as Franklin's gull
http://pho.to/5K8yd/50

Caspian or yellow-legged gulls?
http://pho.to/5K8yd/76
http://pho.to/5K8yd/r5
http://pho.to/5K8yd/8h
http://pho.to/5K8yd/lo

Common, long-legged or rough legged buzzard?
http://pho.to/5K8yd/sy
different bird, different locality
http://pho.to/5K8yd/or

Emberizidae?
http://pho.to/5K8yd/xq

Grebe?
http://pho.to/5K8yd/n5
http://pho.to/5K8yd/a1

Alpine swift?
http://pho.to/5K8yd/4d

Common pochard?
http://pho.to/5K8yd/7u

cirl bunting, marsh harrier, subalpine warbler, both mediterranean shags, then a cormorant (note more substantial bill), black-headed gull, all (resident) yellow-legged gulls, both common buzzards, first an adult second a 2cy, greenfinch, great crested grebe, common swift and common pochard.

cheers

Lou, surely the white on the underside makes the swift Alpine!

lou salomon said:

cirl bunting, marsh harrier, subalpine warbler, both mediterranean shags, then a cormorant (note more substantial bill), black-headed gull, all (resident) yellow-legged gulls, both common buzzards, first an adult second a 2cy, greenfinch, great crested grebe, common swift and common pochard.

cheers

Click to expand...

Agreed but Pete is correct with Alpine Swift

Thanks a lot!
Can you tell me how you ID' the two gull species? There was a bird sign on the island which (among other birds) had a description of the Caspian gull on it, which is why I was leaning towards that one.

It depends on when the sign was made - Yellow-legged and Caspian were considered variants of one species for a long time, so maybe the sign was old.
Our local group started paying more attention only last winter, before that we lumped everything into YLG. Caspians tend to have a much thinner bill and there is a difference in wing pattern (most birds I have seen since were flying immatures at a distance, so most of my ebird records are "Caspian/Yellow-legged")

Thanks!
What about the black-headed gull? How can you tell it from the mediterranean gull in this picture?

Well, Mediterranean has a more robust black head, while Black-headed does not have black head but brown as this bird. When you see (hundreds of) thousands of BHG you kind of internalize their "jizz" and compare everything else with them.
(I am not sure of Mediterranean's distribution in Croatia, but in Serbia it is only found in breeding plumage at a few of the northern lowland lakes, and elsewhere you have to make a very precise picture so a panel of judges may nitpick it before approval for record acceptance)

Edit:
Oh, this is my 500th post on Birdforum!

adult Mediterranean at any time of year is very easy to separate from Black-headed on the pure white wingtips alone.

of course i meant alpine swift B