Had a day out on the Gower on Friday. A five hour larid focused vigil produced the putative Thayer's Gull, a large 'white-winger' (that seems to have been a huge Kumlien's Gull), 1-2 Mediterranean Gulls and a dose of Kittiwake (including a few heavily oiled birds). Bobbing about in the background were 100s of distant Common Scoters, a few Red-throated Divers, Guillemot, Razorbill and Fulmar, and a Porpoise.
The putative Thayer's Gull; my guess is this bird could yet disappear into the pale Thayer's-Thayer's/Kumlien's intergrade-dark Kumlien's morass but a characteristic looking beast all the same. All images c/o Tom Chinnick.
We wrote this bird off as a Glaucous hybrid (somebody else reported it as pure Glaucous), didn't even consider Kumlien's, mainly due to size, it was chunkier than most of the Herrings on the beach, it also had quite an 'aggressive' looking head shape, quite coarse streaking at the sides of the neck/breast and a slightly odd bill. Of course, on Saturday it appears this bird was reported as Kumlien's,... [Or maybe not, see comments below.]
... oh well, it's good to duff something every now and then. By the way, this was not the bird reported as Kumlien's on Friday.
2 comments:
It isn't the same as the Kumlien's on saturday either!
Curiouser and curiouser. Gawd knows what is/was going on down there then! A mate present on the Saturday thought this was the bird being reported as Kumlien's. On the Friday there had been a different bird reported as Kumlien's. P'raps I didn't duff it up(?!), or p'raps I did. Definitely didn't nail it. Larid, can't live with it, can't live with it.
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