[birdsoftheferry]

Can anyone tell from this distant phonescoped shot if this is a Caspian Gull. Many thanks

[Marcus Conway - ebirder]

It's tricky to tell. I saw one recently and straight away it was clearly different, which I don't get from this. However, the forehead looks steep, eye small and dark, mirrors small, and head seems clean which are favourable.

The bird is quite dark compared to the others which is also interesting.

Roll on the experts...

[Hotspur]

Id say difficult to say from pic but mantle tone makes it adult cach or mich. Appears small headed, beady eyed and long winged. Hard to make out the bill but the legs look pink which in an adult mich would be unusual so it seems a likely Caspain Gull but im not sure you can say for definite from that photo.

[tophillbirder]

Would expect a Yellow-legged or Caspian Gull to have some head markings in winter. It's too dark for a Caspian anyway. Probably a dark Herring Gull but picture isn't really good enough. Sorry.

[Steve Waite]

Originally Posted by tophillbirder

Would expect a Yellow-legged or Caspian Gull to have some head markings in winter.

Diagree with that, adult Yellow-legged Gulls frequently have the whitest and most streak-free head in any winter UK larid flock. Same goes for Caspian.

All I can say about the Gull in question is that it looks small!

[Brian Stretch]

Originally Posted by birdsoftheferry

Can anyone tell from this distant phonescoped shot if this is a Caspian Gull. Many thanks

It appears to be an adult Yellow-legged Gull.

Comparing the mantle tones with the Lesser in the background and the Herrings in the foreground, the mantle is too dark for Caspian, while the clean white dome shaped head and long primaries looks good for YLG. It seems impossible to be certain of the leg colour from this shot.

Brian

www.westmidlandsbirding.co.uk
www.worcesterbirding.co.uk

[luke]

I'd go with a dark herring gull, probably argentatus. The legs appear to be pink on my monitor.

[Steve Lister]

Originally Posted by tophillbirder

Would expect a Yellow-legged or Caspian Gull to have some head markings in winter. It's too dark for a Caspian anyway. Probably a dark Herring Gull but picture isn't really good enough. Sorry.

Agree with Steve Waite that Caspian and Yellow-legged need not have any head markings at all at this time of year.

This afternoon I was watching large gulls and....
2 adult Caspian - both spotless white heads
2 adult Yellow-legged - ditto
790 Herring Gulls probably 50% adult - 3 with spotless white heads, the rest various amounts of either streaking or not proper white.
(In a roost situation I wonder if the 3 white-headed birds would have been called Yellow-legged???)

Steve

[tophillbirder]

If you read my original posting you'll see I said "some head markings'. This concurs with "Beaman & Madge". However up here Yellow-legged Gulls are pretty scarce and I admit my experience of winter birds isn't as extensive as I would wish. However I still go with the bird being a dark Herring Gull

[tittletattler]

Originally Posted by birdsoftheferry

Can anyone tell from this distant phonescoped shot if this is a Caspian Gull. Many thanks

Hi Marc? Is that Marc? Buy a digital camera you cheapskate.

Compare your bird to the ad YLGs in the pics attached.

What colour were the legs on your bird?

Edit: Forgot to add that it appears too high chested and too dark for a Herring.

[birdsoftheferry]

[quote=tittletattler;1362707]Hi Marc? Is that Marc? Buy a digital camera you cheapskate.

No it's not Marc, it's Martyn.

I do have a coolpix 4500 but it packed up last week, currently in bits in my conservatory.

As to the Gull, it is a 4cy Caspian as comfirmed by Dylan Wrathall.

Thanks again to all who have answered.

Martyn

[tittletattler]

[quote=birdsoftheferry;1363058No it's not Marc, it's Martyn.
I do have a coolpix 4500 but it packed up last week, currently in bits in my conservatory.
As to the Gull, it is a 4cy Caspian as comfirmed by Dylan Wrathall.
[/QUOTE]

Hi Martyn,

My (2nd) 990 has also just packed up. The original Coolpix's were (and still are) very good but they do break easily. 990s cost about £30 on Ebay so not too expensive to replace.

I'd be interested to know why this bird is a 4cy Casp. I had a very similar bird at Cliffe a couple of weeks back and the only way I could be sure it was a Yellow legged Gull was when it raised its wings. It was sat on water at distance so like this bird, other features were difficult to pick out. Your bird seems rather deep bellied which is a better feature of YLG, IMHO.

[JANJ]

We need to see another image of Martyn,s gull to to have a fair chance for a possible identification. From this image alone, it´s impossible to tell YLG from CG from argentatus HG.
Some structurally features can be seen - which might lead to a possible so and so gull.
I think it´s more the white-headed and dark upperparts tone that lead onn to a YLG/CG suggestion, in fact there is realy nothing in this image that doesn´t fit a Herring - structurally, except dark tone and white head - which would fit some argentatus.

Check around here:

http://waarneming.nl/soort/photos/937

http://waarneming.nl/soort/photos/25...kleed=0&page=2

JanJ

[smiths]

Whatever this gull is, it does not really look like a (near-) adult Caspian Gull; there is just too much black on the primaries. If you look at the exposed area of the wingtip immediately below the tertials, you can see that it is entirely black. Fourth-cycle and adult Caspian Gulls are largely grey in that area, as the black colour is normally confined to the base of at most two outer primaries (P9-10). Also, there does not seem to be a lot of white near the tip on the underside of the wingtip (Caspian Gull has a large white mirror there), and the white primary tips (apical spots) look small.
The extensively black wingtip could conceivably fit a 3rd-cycle Caspian Gull, but in that case I would at least expect more black on the bill, and some on the primary coverts too.
Head shape does not look typical of Caspian Gull either; it seems to fit Yellow-legged Gull better.

[JANJ]

This is what smiths means by to much black on the primaries below the tertials (if he don´t mind me pointing this out)

http://waarneming.nl/foto/view/65956

He´s right of course - talking adults now. However, it sometimes depends on in which way Caspian (or HG, or YLG holds it´s wings and of course on this one we are not able to see anything of that:

http://waarneming.nl/foto/view/139622

Note that in this Caspian we see some of the inner primaries, which could be missjudged as a part of the outer primaries:

http://waarneming.nl/foto/view/139276

While sometimes rather similar to the subject gull:

http://www.iesmeulmeester.nl/fotos.p...&subcatsub=236

There´s some differences in the pattern, meaning the distribution of the grey in the closed wing between Caspian Yellow-legged and Herring Gull but that´s another story.

JanJ

[birdsoftheferry]

Unfortunately for photo's this bird was distant but through a scope (Leica APO Televid 77 with 20-60 zoom) it was very like the 3cy in this shot but, i thought it had less brown in the upper wing http://www.iesmeulmeester.nl/fotos.p...&subcatsub=249 . I only saw it on the ground and not in flight.
I have added a couple more shots, one through phone two with canon and 400mm lens