Focusing on finding a Baltic Gull! (1 Viewer)

[Evan Atkinson]

Now that the Caspian Gull season has almost finished, I am turning my attention to trying to find an acceptable candidate of Baltic Gull this summer. I came across this excellent blog post by Thomas Miller and it goes into great detail about ID'ing 1st summer Baltic Gulls; see here -> The Baltic Gulls at Appleford

There are no roosts that I know of in my area of South East London, however at my dad's in the Cambridgeshire-Norfolk border, there is an excellent area around the village of Cottenham and the Waterbeach Barracks that has held 15,000+ gulls this winter alone. I have noted various areas where birds tend to roost and I guess it is just a game of patiently checking the roosts when I can and hoping to pick a bird out. I don't know how many records of this subspecies have been recorded in Cambridge but it surely is a bird that goes undetected to an extent, much like the Russian (heinei) race of common gull. I doubt they will ever be as common as Caspian Gulls due to the rather restricted range but perhaps with more observer awareness there's the chance of them being found somewhat more often. I'll continue to post here in this subsection of the forum if I come across much of interest.

Kind regards

Evan

 

[martyrynin]

I wish you the best of luck!

I've not looked much into it myself, but I have offhand read that it's not possible to ID without a leg ring.
With that said, I'm interested to see how it goes for you.

Edit: I have read through the blog and for first summer Baltic gulls it does seem compelling that ID could be possible!
Good read.

 

[Evan Atkinson]

I wish you the best of luck!

I've not looked much into it myself, but I have offhand read that it's not possible to ID without a leg ring.
With that said, I'm interested to see how it goes for you.

Thanks!

They are definitely ID'able without a leg ring as seen in the blog post I sent but if you come across one with a leg ring I'm sure that would really seal the deal.

 

[KenM]

Circa 5/6 years ago, I was birding (April) off Paphos headland Cyprus, when there was a “passage” of Baltic Gulls flying West inshore.
The wings were “absurdly long” relative to body length, pushing them into shearwater proportions, quite unlike any other gull that I’ve ever seen.
Unfortunately, it’s the only time that I’ve encountered them since, despite returning same time, year on year.