Birds, Leps, Observations & Generalities - the images and ramblings of Mark Skevington. Sometimes.

Wednesday 24 August 2011

Ross's

Nipped over to Birstall Meadows and WCPS after work in the vain hope that the deteriorating weather late afternoon would drop in a wader or two. No such luck. Only birds of note at Birstall were 3 Little Egrets milling about in the far corner, and the only waders here (and at WCPS) were Lapwings.

Almost immediately when I pulled up at WCPS it pissed down. I waited in the car for the squall to pass, and emerged to that distinct 'it's just rained heavily on dry tarmac covered in goose shit' smell. Talking of goose shit, almost immediately in front of me was this pile ....

Sporting a plain gold band on right leg, therefore clearly married

Mid November in Norfolk, in a shitty field with Pink-feet, and this is of course an immediately tickable wild Ross's. Probably.

Nothing else of real interest; a few Swallows over the water, a distant Common Tern, and a few gulls. I'm not a Larophile - I'd quite happily lump them into just four species: Small, Medium, Big and Ugly. As a good example, this brute got caught on the sensor - a transitional first-summer into second-winter Great Black-backed? I would not be surprised to find I'm wrong!

4 comments:

John Hague said...

See this is the kind of thing those pervy Larophiles love... an underage Gull.

Personally I might age it as 1st winter as I would expect to see some plain grey feathering in the mantle by now. Then again I'm no pervert...

Skev said...

Pale tip and base to bill (though not a pale at the base as might be expected) and dark grey greater covs is what prompted the ageing suggestion, but never mind the age - I wasn't 100% I had the right fecking gull!

Stewart said...

Hi Mark, thats a big ugly bugger right enough. I cant see a pale bill base in your pic? And the tip might just be where its been scratching about eating goose shite. It looks to me like a first winter into first summer ( forget the time of year, some are retarded). A second winter would have some of those barred mantle feathers mixed with plain grey ones. but I think the strangest thing is the iris colour? It looks pale for a gull of this age. That alone should make it a moult constipated 2nd winter?

Skev said...

Just a very slight pink base to lower mandible Stewart, and yes iris does appear pale. I'm quite happy to record it as a 'moult constipated less than adult Ugly Gull'.