European Herring Gulls 101

Did a wee recce on Saturday morning in North Cheshire for a gull day in March. Wow! The sheer number of gulls passing over the Moore Nature Reserve car park, early morning was staggering. Had wander around with Mark P. and I thought these 2 ‘Northern’ Herring Gulls made good watching.A preening adult showing lots of wing tip information and a bird, 9 months after hatching still in very juvenile looking plumage:

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cross hatching on the breast

It’s a bit of a Pacific Rim character: when the breast streaking is ‘cross hatched’ too. I got some video of this bird at Stubber’s Green last week. I don’t especially think its from the Pacific Rim. I presume its a European bird. Just interesting. Now had the tail been all dark (which it wasn’t- was an obvious ‘tail band’), I might have got pretty excited. Looks a bit like some 1st winter Slaty- backed Gulls. Have you seen cross hatching like this on young Herring Gulls?

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Stubber’s Green, January 2012

Besides the more obviously interesting birds such as Caspian, Yellow-legged and Iceland Gulls, as ever with carefull gull watching there were several curious and interesting birds this last week at Stubber’s Green, West Midlands.

Here’s one which falls inevitably into the category of presumed Glaucous Gull influence in a  Herring Gull. Certainly I have seen similarly pale birds in Varanger, Arctic Norway which are usually presumed to be some kind of Glaucous/ Herring hybrid mix.

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Thanks to Jason Atkinson for these excellent shots of the same bird

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