I was really good to bump into Chris Townend and Russ Eynon this evening near the Imperial rugby ground. We spent the last half hour of daylight (plus a good deal of near darkness) trying to suss a white-winged gull roosting on Bull Hill. We zipped round to the docks for a better view of it but it remained frustratingly distant. Initial thoughts were that it had to be glaucous gull - a hefty bird clearly bigger than accompanying herring gulls. However it looked undeniably long-winged at times and there were moments when the larger size was not so obvious. To compound the difficulty we were mostly viewing it back-on when size can be deceptive. As far as age goes it was always difficult. A very white-looking individual with perhaps some pale grey in the mantle? The bill looked dull but we couldn't detect the classic 'pink dipped in black' of an immature so perhaps a third-winter or older? Difficult to say! It is probably best left as a probable glaucous gull. It never appeared small and dainty as the majority of icelands do and often looked really big but it was a bit of a chameleon to say the least. Hopefully it will reappear tomorrow.
Matt, not wanting to appear rude or 'holier than thou', but I think you'll find that the large sand bar where you had the 'white-winged' gull is Shelly Bank. Great Bull Hill is the sandbar immediately north of the warren, which usually has the gathering of G b-b gulls and Cormorants sat on it.
ReplyDeleteHi Terry - as you stand on the fish quay, with Warren Point to your left, looking north it's the big sand bar. I've always called it Bull Hill but will check a map! We originally scoped the bird from the rugby ground but we were looking as far west as we could. Last night it wasn't exposed for gulls until really late, nearly 5pm.
ReplyDelete