Thursday, September 02, 2010

More Gulls


Dave's excellent post has got me going and
generated lots of intrest so here's some more
photo's taken by a freind of mine - go have a go































































10 comments:

Daniel Branch said...

I think the top two are armenian gulls, I have no idea about the middle one and I think that the bottom one is a palla's gull.

David Sutcliffe said...

Never seen any of these gulls in the flesh!
I go along with Dan on the top two as Armenian gulls.
Struggling with the juv gull - will have to think about that a bit more!
2 Pallas's Gulls (middle and far right) with Caspian Gulls mostly and a few B H gulls in foreground.

martynbirder said...

sorry chaps close but not close enough, have a close look

martynbirder said...

sorry forgot to mention the large Gull is obviously Great Balck-headed or Pallas's Gull for the younger generation

David Pennington said...

Heuglin's at top? Erm... or poss barabensis.

Might be some Brown-headeds in with bottom two. Unless they're Grey-headed.

David Sutcliffe said...

Can't study them any more Martyn! Getting nowhere fast. Are there some Slender-billed gulls in there? Go on put us out of our misery!!!

martynbirder said...

not much of a response to these Gulls, no shame in being wrong, these are very hard

well what are they? These were taken on Morji Beach at Goa in India in February 2008. I've visited this beach about 10 times between 2000 and 2008 watching Gulls there and to say they are variable is an understatment! There are usually about 300 large Gulls present there most being Caspian Gulls of the race barabensis and eastern Caspian Gull with a few Heuglini's Gull of the race taimyensis and up to fifty Great Black Headed Gull.

photo's 1,2 & 3

Armenian Gull was a very good guess but they are actually Caspian Gulls of the race "barabensis" often called Steppe Gulls (sometimes classed as a race of Heuglini's Gulls), this sub-species is very distinctive when known and usually shows bands on the bill of varying degrees in full summer plumage, usually black or red or a mixture of both. the single white mirror on P10 can clearly be seen on both photo's - note that these birds actually look paler because of the strong light. The first summer is also presumably a barabensis.

photo 4.

This is the most interesting photo as it contains

Great Black Headed Gull
Black Headed Gull
Brown Headed Gull
Caspian Gull L.c.barabensis
Caspian Gull L.c.cachinanns (eastern race)
Heuglin's Gull L.h.taimyrensis(one partly obscurred at the back - shows better at the left of photo 5)

well done to eveyone who tried like I said no shame in being wrong as the id features of these races are not clearly understood mainly because of the variation between races

Jeff Cox said...

Comments from Mick Cunningham before the answers were known - apologies to Mick but I've just received notification that he couldn't post to the Blog:

Cracking pics grommet! Isn't this too hard? How can Pennine birders do gulls - we don't get em.

no armenian gulls here as far as i can see.

if the top two lone-flyers have truly 4-coloured bill then that plus wingtip makes me go for barabensis – Steppe Gull or whatever it’s called these days.

As for most of large white-headeds in the group pics: it's naughty to post what look like caspian gulls BUT OF EASTERN SUB-SPECIES (if I'm right).

The big darker-backed lesser black back thingy therefore= heuglins i think

the small black-head look-alike with pale eye is brown-headed.

i could be completely wrong as no info on location and eg barabensis and eastern caspian can be hard to split.

mick cunningham
(about to fall flat on face)

David Sutcliffe said...

That was a struggle and a half Martyn but thanks for giving us 'a bit of a test'! Good to broaden our horizons.

martynbirder said...

yes sorry about that Dave, very hard and perhaps a bit unfair, some good guesses though David P got them and so did Mick

got me thinking again too!