Month: February 2019

For whatever reason I’ve been thinking about Russian Common Gulls alot recently…The BBRC has this to say about them: 

“we believe that heinei is not safely diagnosable, owing primarily to the difficulty of excluding intergrades with nominate canus. Based on its distribution and movements, it seems likely to be of regular occurrence in Britain and dark-mantled Common Gulls in eastern Britain in winter may well be of this form”

I would basically agree with the above, however if it was likely a regular occurrence, Im pretty sure I would have seen a spot on bird by now. The fact is I have never seen a Russian Common gull in the UK, not even photos of decent 1st winter.

Generally speaking, 1st winter Common gulls in the UK do not look like Heinei, I ve never seen a first winter common gull with faint or no streaking in the head and little or none around the eye combined with a pink base to the bill, its a look that you don’t see here. The majority of 1st winters in Istanbul did look this way. Below are 45 individuals out of a flock of c600 common gulls taken in London in early Febuary. Theres some differring stages of moult on show and and Im sure some are from a good way to the North and North east (Norwegian and Estonian rings are picked up at wanstead on the regular)  this is a pretty decent slice of what they usually look like. 

None really look like this (heinei taken in istanbul ’19 and Cyprus ’16)

BUT! I thought i would post  are closest birds I’ve seen to heinei in the uk, call them ‘lookalikes’ if you will . They may be almost within variation but theyre not perfect so no good i say. I might see one a year might look along these lines and show the following features :

• Caspian Gull-like neck Shawl
• Pink Bill base
• Clean white rump and upper tail, a neatish thin Black band with little or no white in outer web of t6
• Mostly White underwing, contrasting with dark secondaries
• A long winged appearance  

Whats really missing, or what makes them not heinei, or not perfect is the lack of :

• A Clean white or mostly un-streaked head (on all)
• 2nd generation Scapulars are darker than canus, (in most)

*canus can show all of the above features but in a combination of all of them should indicate heinei. 

Bird 1 wanstead 2016, a little too much head streaking/ smudging around the eye

Bird 2 Greenwich 2017, Again too much head streaking, dull bill base, (nice dark mantle though..)

Bird 3, Wanstead 2019– A little too much head streaking, although nice buff/pinkish shawl. Grey in mantle perhaps too plain and too pale. lacks dark secondaries in underwing (not shown)

Bird 4 Wanstead 2019, better looking about the head, but plain pale scaps not great and this bird showed a small mirror on p10 so I lost interest.

That sums up the best ive seen here and its where I am at the moment with them, maybe in ten years they’ll all be easily identifiable but I am currently yet to see anything that Im convinced is a heinei . Below is a confusingly plumaged 2nd winter bird fro Wanstead last week. Showing much black in the tail and secondaries, also no mirror on p9 and all black outer web of p6, but im sure its a still a retarded canus. Maybe i should be looking at adults!

Here are some of the Common Gulls I came across in Istanbul. according to the Peter Adriaens & Chris Gibbins paper from Dutch birding a couple of years ago Istanbul was a research location for heinei Common gulls, most of what I was seeing were likely from decent ‘Russian’ stock, they did have that look and showed:

• A Clean white, mostly un-streaked head (I feel this must be a highly important feature as I am yet to see canus in the UK show this feature to this extent!) with Casp-like neck Shawl
• Pink Bill base
• Clean white rump and upper tail, a neatish thin Black band with little or no white in outer web of t6
• Mostly White underwing, contrasting with dark secondaries
• A long winged appearance
• 2nd generation Scapulars are darker than canus, many with brown chevrons and markings contrasting with the darker choclately remaining wing coverts, (unless bleached as some were)

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The next few birds shows some head streaking but give a similar feel to me in terms of the tones in the wing and mantle, could well be from an intergrade zone or just variation … dunno

The Below photo was taken in Cyprus December 2016, a similar thing going on, long winged, bug eyed thing.

Ive seen a few Candidates in the UK, with one in particular showing almost every feature but the usual let down over here is the lack of an un-streaked almost pure white head which I suppose gives that impression of a small round head with a large eye and the expression seen on the clean headed birds above. According to the BBRC heinei common gulls are something along the lines of ‘probably only scarce’ due to a number of birds ringed in a catch of common gulls being assigned to heinei on biometrics (mainly wing length i think) i’ve never seen one that looks exactly like theyre supposed to in the paper although id hope it was a possibility. Keep looking.

 

2 nights stay in Istanbul for Amy’s birthday. The destination was her choice but I was defiantly pleased as I had an inkling it would be good for gulls.

I’d heard mixed reviews from ‘a good number of caspian gulls’ to ‘none at all!’ and I guess dates have alot to do with that. However in between the multitude of Yellow-Legs I probably saw 40+ Caspian Gulls. There were also a mix of Canus and Heninei Common Gulls, (Blog post for them coming soon) thousands of Black–headed and one or two Slender Billed gulls.

Despite it being a trip to see the cultural and historic delights of Istanbul and not a Caspian paparazzi outing I managed to photograph a good few birds, Many more were seen just flying around, following boats and sat around in the small harbour at Kadikoy. I didn’t locate the best spot for seeing birds on the deck but here’s selection of the birds I photographed:

This next bird was a delight, following the boat for 5 minutes giving point black views sometimes even too close for the 100-400mm Zoom.

The only other age other than 1st winters were a couple of 2nd winters, this one below with tiny p10 mirrors.

The Sound of a few Caspian Gulls squabbling over bread was music to my ears and I think i’l make an effort to get out that direction again before April arrives.