Update from the tip last Saturday

It's been crazy days this past week. Saturday seems a distant memory what with a wedding, umpteen Christmas parties, Christmas shopping and the small matter of the last week of school keeping me busy. So I've finally got just a bit of time to do an update. And needless to say it's gull filled. Once again, the tip gave three decent, if not individually very different, Caspian Gulls - two adults and the unringed second-winter from the previous Saturday.

Caspian Gull bird 1. Presumably a near adult with more extensive black in P9 and P10. Otherwise, a nice unbroken band to P5, dark mark on the outer web of P4 and fairly typical looking structurally and bare part wise.

Caspian Gull bird 2. A pale-eyed individual but not the slick proportions with the 'hanging tummy', mid grey mantle, long primaries and tapering back. A nice parallel-sided, tepid looking bill too with slender, pale yellow legs.

 There was also an adult Yellow-legged Gull, at least two adult Med Gulls and a hybrid Herring/Lesser Black-backed hybrid.

hybrid Lesser Black-backed x Herring Gull. Compared to Herring Gull was long-winged, tepid yellow-orange legs, heavily streaked nape, darker grey mantle, obvious trailing edge to secondaries and significant black in wingtips.

And 22 rings read was a good haul too - all from the UK this time around apart from a French/Belgian ringed Med Gull. Most interesting were a couple of birds from the Grampian Ringing Group, ringed as breeding adults in Aberdeenshire in previous summers, as well as a bird ringed at Seamer Carr landfill site near Scarborough, from a ringing scheme I'd not recorded previously.

Herring Gull - ringed as an adult at East Tullos Industrial Estate, Aberdeen on 02/06/13. This is the first sighting since it was ringed.