Iceland Gull at Ferry Meadows

A first-year Iceland Gull was reported at Ferry Meadows CP yesterday, apparently showing rather well through the fog. Upon my arrival, the bird had moved to the far side of Gunwade Lake, but could be seen just bobbing around on the water. I walked around the lake to see if I could get any closer, whereupon the bird decided to fly into the middle of said lake and then fly to where I had just been standing, ARRRGH! I managed to get a couple of shots of this addition to my PBC year list, a record equalling total for me of 179, which considering the lack of birding done this year, isn't too bad.

The bird then flew high and to the west, not to be seen again.

Kumlien`s Gull, possibly

This large white-winged gull has been making frequent visits to Frampton Marsh RSPB for the past week or so and has caused some excitement by showing signs of being a Kumlien`s Gull. Myself and Chris Orders paid a visit on Sunday to see the gull for ourselves.

This type of gull is commonly regarded as a hybrid of an Iceland Gull and Thayer`s Gull, or a sub-species of Iceland Gull, indeed its latin name is Larus glaucoides kumlieni which basically means Iceland Kumlien`s Gull. Very confusing.

The major identification point of this gull is the darker parts of its plumage. A true Iceland Gull is very pale and in some lights this bird looks like this, but you can see in the second photo that the bird has dark primary feathers ( the longest ones on the wing ) and in flight the bird had a dark band on the tail, both signs of kumlieni. The jury is still out on this bird, is it Kumlien`s or `just` a plain old Iceland? I don`t think we will find out definitively.

The kumlieni form comes from North-West Quebec and winters on the North American East coast, whereas the glaucoides form (Iceland) is from Greenland, wintering in the North Atlantic.

A couple of Gulls

Dogsthorpe tip in Peterborough isn`t a particularly attractive site when it comes to bird watching, it is, however the best site in the area for getting views of the rarer gulls the U.K. has to offer.

As I have mentioned before, Josh Jones is one of the areas top birders and one of his passions is gull watching. He is often found searching the tip and its surrounding fields for gulls of all kinds and today was no exception. Josh called me at lunch time to say that he had `got` an Iceland Gull at the tip, but I could not get there for an hour or so due to work commitments and when I arrived on site the bird had disappeared, but Josh had just found a second-winter Caspian Gull, which he duly put me on to.

Caspian Gull

Caspian Gull

We then searched the large number of gulls present to see if the Iceland Gull was anywhere to be seen. It wasn`t and when a Red Kite `buzzed` through putting all the gulls in the air we decided to check out the fields adjacent to the tip. Sure enough, there in the front of the flock was the Iceland Gull, a lovely pale juvenile.

Iceland Gull (looking right)

Iceland Gull 

These digiscoped shots are really just for the record and don`t really show the gulls to their full potential. The Iceland Gull, in particular was a lovely looking gull, completely pale, `biscuity` colouration.