• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Gull Id - Hampshire, UK (1 Viewer)

PJPro

Well-known member
Saw two gulls (circled in the picture) among a flock of Black-headed Gulls and Black-tailed Godwits at Pennington Marshes today. While it's not particularly marked in the photo, the two circled gulls had pink flushed underparts and really stood out from the rest of the flock. The photo was taken by a mobile phone through my SLCs and, unfortunately, this pinkness has not been captured by the photo.

Do Black-headed Gulls sometimes have pink flushed underparts or are these birds something more exotic (e.g. Bonaparte's Gull)?

Thanks for any advice or suggestions.
 

Attachments

  • 20180407_Gull-cropped.jpg
    20180407_Gull-cropped.jpg
    465.2 KB · Views: 208
The bottom of the two circled gulls is a Mediterranean Gull. Thicker beak and beak shape (cant see the colour due to the quality) darker black head and head marking shape.

Miker.
 
We did see Mediterranean Gulls while we were there but the the bottom bird was not one of them but I can see how it could be mistaken for one.....my fault for a shoddy picture.

Many thanks for all your replies.
 
Hmm. We don't have a better picture (or even a worst one) with its head up. The more I look at the picture the more I think that MG could be right....we were more focused on the pink flushed underparts (which was much more evident than the photo might suggest. The head is more of a true black rather than the chocolate brown of the BhG and looks to extend over more of the head, rather than just the face?
 
It’s pretty dark mantled and appears to have some black in the primaries, on pretty much the bits you’d expect to see black on a BHG.
 
It’s pretty dark mantled and appears to have some black in the primaries, on pretty much the bits you’d expect to see black on a BHG.

If this birds head was in the normal position, where do you think the hood would extend to? Compare the extent of the hood, relative to the rear of the eye, looks to be further away than on the other BhG's, maybe even double the distance?




A
 
Last edited:
Warning! This thread is more than 6 years ago old.
It's likely that no further discussion is required, in which case we recommend starting a new thread. If however you feel your response is required you can still do so.

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top