Reculver

Icy Leybourne

Part of the far side of the Ocean was iced over this morning, and a group of Gulls were resting there. They looked fairly settled, until I got round there with the tripod, when I quickly spooked them all - TWICE. Its the tripod, honest, I need not to hold it like a gun.

This is one of the Herring Gulls, Larus argentatus, this one in the group on the ice. It looks like a third year bird, with limited development of the white windows in this plumage. The beak looked quite adult oddly enough, and the head was quite white.There is a lot of dark further in on the wing, just visible on the underside here.

There were several Common Gulls, Larus canus, around, both that I had good views of having relatively whitish heads. Nothing else they could be, but its interesting to note the variation. Earlier in the year I have tended to see much darker streaked heads, but the moult to summer plumages is a long way off, so it must simply be individual variation.

Good numbers of Goldfinches

Barden Lake at Haysden

A quick 30 minutes down at Barden Lake with the new lens, but only the old EOS 350D camera, as the 7D is in for cleaning and repair - hopefully! The short session was very enjoyable, but also very cold without my coat! 

This is an adult bird, with the head hood just starting to appear I think, looking good in reasonable afternoon light! The primaries show the white tips on the primaries quite clearly.

This is another adult bird, but in this case there is rather less evidence of the hood appearing. Also there are fewer signs of the white tips to the primary flight feathers.

This next one's hood has also not started yet. We are back with rather more obviously white-tipped primaries again.

This is another bird I reckon. The white eyelids are quite visible against the dark of the head, and overall it looks very like the bird at the top of the page:

The next photograph is of a first winter bird. There is quite a lot of wear on the secondaries (?), which are badly (slightly white) "fringed" at the margins. There is a lot of brown in this bird's wings, this is fairly standard where none of the wing feathers have been replaced. The primaries, which have also been around since the bird first fledged last summer, look to be a uniform brown, with no white tips, which may have worn away! The beak (and legs) are generally (as in this picture) orange rather than red, as is characteristic for these young birds.

This is still the same bird taking off. I do like the water drops!

A nice probably female adult Herring Gull, Larus argentatus argenteus on the signpost in the lake.