The Gullening 3 - Mo Gulls, Mo Problems

After finishing off the weekend last week with some nice shrikes and eagles.


Red-Backed Shrike



White Tailed Eagle

It was back up to Hameenkyro this weekend. I was down at Tarastenjarvi dump again, bright an early this morning.

It was slow going at first as a Goshawk stuck it to the gulls for the first 20 minutes or so, so I wandered around the back of the dump, finding a nice Merlin for my trouble.

When the gulls finally settled I sat back to enjoy them.

Lots of crisp juvenile Baltic Gull in situ now. I really enjoy taking in the variation of these beauties.



Baltic Gull - juv - Dark greater coverts. Among the birds I see, dark coverts are in the majority.


Baltic Gull - juv - The greater coverts can often be half and half, both horizontally, as in this bird where the greater coverts bases are dark, or vertically, where the outer greater coverts are dark but the inners paler. (below)



Baltic Gull - juv - mostly pale greater coverts


Baltic Gull - some open wing patterns












A very pale individual


A dark bird


Muddy greater coverts


Already well progressed mantle moult



A beautiful dark bird.


Immaculate and dark






An unusually dark bodied bird





Adult Baltic Gulls, as always, were stunning.






After enjoying the Baltics hanging around the trash pile, but finding no Caspians, I moved towards the hill to check the birds there. In a small group, frequenting some puddles on the yard beforehand, I picked up this lovely juv Casp. There had been one reported of late, but I have not seen shots of it, so am unaware if this is new or not. A gorgeous bird nonetheless.



Caspian Gull - juv - a gingery toned individual.



Good comparison







Tail comparison




Gorgeous underwing




I then left the bird on the hill and returned to the thrash pile, however it followed me.







That tail.



Other than this one Casp, however, there was just a couple of Casp wannabes on offer. Interesting birds with some interesting feather patterns.


Pale and leafy, but too well marked.



Dark and white, with plain tertials, but not quite the whole package.


As always, plenty of Baltic Herring Gulls around too.


An enjoyable day of gulling. Could have sworn I heard my first Lapland Bunting of the year too. Will be getting cold soon!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Finnish Focus On...Taiga And Tundra Bean Geese

Image
Have been meaning to write a post on Tundra and Taiga Bean Goose identification for a while now. Wildfowl are my guilty pleasure. I've always enjoyed looking for them. The escape issue turns a lot of people off them. Grey geese can turn people off further still. Since moving to Finland, being able to spend long hours in the field watching both types of Bean Goose has been a joy, especially considering how rare they are in Ireland.  Tundra Bean Geese are the far commoner species to occur here, making them the easier to photograph and so a good place to start. Tundra Bean Goose Tundra Bean Goose - careful assessment of structure is most important when identifying bean geese. Whilst there are size differences between the smaller Tundra and larger Taiga, this plays out most obviously in their structure and shape. Both species, rear on, can be extremely difficult to pick apart without the structural clues visible. The head and bill structure are crucial in Bean Goose identification. Thi...
Read more

How To Be A Rarity Finder

Image
A recent statistic popped up in my various social media memories.  To date I've been birding on 4 continents, Europe, Asia, Africa and North America, and found rare birds on each of them. Pretty happy with that. 😎 So thought a post on how to go about finding rarities and importantly, how to BE a rarity finder was worth throwing up. They may sound like the same thing, but I have different views on both. One is methodology. The other is an outlook. Combine the best of both and you will achieve your goals. First up, the Methodology . 1. KNOW YOUR BIRDS This is an obvious one (though people may have different perceptions on what this takes.)  It stands to reason though, that to find a Lesser Yellowlegs as a vagrant, you're going to have to know what a Redshank looks like (in all plumages)...and Greenshank ...and Wood Sandpiper ...and then...just to be really fecking sure... Greater Yellowlegs, Stilt Sandpiper and Marsh Sandpiper too. Lesser Yellowlegs - I've found 6 Lesser...
Read more

Racism and Bigotry in Birding

Image
It's hard to pick up a newspaper these days and not read about something the new moniker "alt-right" are up to. The rise of racism to more mainstream levels is undeniable. Do we, as birders, need to have this discussion though? Do we know it's out there, among us? I'm pretty sure we do. It's tempting to believe the best about yourself, and this extrapolates to ourselves as a group; as birders. It's tempting to believe that the hobby of birding, taking place in nature, with a holistic, interconnected view of nature, would not harbour backwards, ignorant, scumbag neanderthals, that would discriminate on the basis of colour, creed, ethnicity, sex or sexual preference...over the past two years I've learned, sadly, that this temptation would lead you to the wrong conclusion. Birding, like any other microcosm of humanity, has it's share of these regrettable people. When I say over the past two years, I mean, perhaps, I have been just as ...
Read more