77 wingers so far...

I've been in Ireland since late Friday night, doing a bit of a tour along the west coast. Earlier today, the three of us (me, Alan C and Staines) hit Nimmo's Pier for a bit of a winger photo feast. Loads of signs up telling the locals not to feed swans etc with white, stale or mouldy bread so we whacked a load of wholemeal into the melee and got a pretty average 6 Icelands (4 juvs and 2 second-winters) and a couple of adult Ring-billed Gulls.

Mr Biscuit

Adult ringer - does what it says on the tin

We had a quick cruise west along Galway bay to Rossaveal where, amongst a load of Herrings, was a solitary juvenile Glaucous Gull; a pretty poor haul compared to what I've had here in the past. Rahasane Turlough was full of birds - 1000s of Wigeon and Teal - but no sign of the hoped for drake American Wigeon. We then headed into Clare, where the highlight of a rather tough afternoon was an adult Ring-billed Gull on the beach at Lahinch. No sign of any Surfers in the bay though.

I spent the previous three days up north, starting with a bit of a dip at Enniskillen where we had a go for the putative Thayer's Gull seen earlier last week. Sligo held half a dozen Iceland Gulls, including these bad boys on the river: -

adult Iceland Gull

a dopy looking juvenile Iceland Gull

There were 3 Richardson's Canada Geese at Ballintemple, Sligo - status quo for this fine site, in amongst the masses of Barnacle Geese. And Killybegs held 26 wingers too (20 Icelands and 6 Glaucs) plus a hybrid presumed Glauc x Herring.

Mayo was good value, and as we headed into the county on Sunday we stopped off in Balina where there was a fairly retarded 2nd-winter Ring-billed Gull complete with a pinkish toned bill and largely dark eye - plenty of the birds I saw in Canada back in December, and the vagrants I've seen over here previously, are much more adult-type in appearance.

What a retard

Just to the north, Killala Bay produced a quality Black Brant in amongst the Pale-bellied Brents as well as further Glaucs and Icelands.

Little and large

After another fitful night's sleep in accommodation (my mother and Karen will be proud!), we headed out to the wild, wild west and did The Mullet where there were wingers everywhere - Icelands seemed to love the fields where we saw 16 in total while the windswept coasts were where those big beastly Glaucs were hanging out, including one on a rather long dead whale carcass.

JJ had raved about a large, long-necked Canada Goose he'd seen a few weeks back at Termoncarragh and after a fair bit of searching we managed to find it in amongst a mixed bag of geese including 2 Tundra Beans (presumably an absolute mega Mayo record), 3 Greenland Whitefronts and a few Icelandic Greylags.

After the Mullet, we headed south taking in Carrowmore Lake where a couple of Ring-necked Ducks were hanging about with the Tufted Ducks, before heading onto Achill Island for the last couple of hours of light. Checking a fish factory was really disappointing, though there were a couple of Glaucs in the scenic setting of Keel beach before finishing off as per usual with the drake Black Duck at Sruhill Lough.

So, to date, nothing amazingly special but relaxing, good company and 77 white-winged gulls so far. See what the next few days bring - just doing this post from The Lighthouse Inn in Kilbaha with a decent pint of Guiness next to me...Loop and the surroundings in the morning.

(S?)AHG at Nimmo's Pier

I've got one of those stinking head colds, feel dog rough and my head is banging. So what do I go and do - decide to have a punt at the Nimmo's Pier adult smithsonianus - a bird I've seen almost annually in recent years.

This bird hasn't come back yet this winter (though it wasn't seen until 5th February last year), but it's interesting to look at this bird in the light of what I saw in Ontario, the Corvo bird in October 2011, the Adriaens & Mactavish article and then some correspondence I've been having with a Canadian guller Kevin McLaughlin. Here are some shots (the first two are mine, and I'd like to thank Tom Cuffe for the four excellent flight shots): -

Photo 1. adult American Herring Gull, Nimmo's Pier, Galway, Ireland March 2008; note the heavy rather blotchy head and neck shawl

Photo 2. It was a big, bulky bird in the field; this shot shows a nice P10 mirror, with an extensive black tip and no obvious signs of a pale tongue on the inner web of this feather either (which you'd be looking for on a 'classic' Newfoundland bird) 

Photo 3. A small mirror to P10 on this photo, as well as a subterminal black 'U' to P5

Photo 4. There's an obvious lack of any pale tongue to the outer primary, P10.

Photo 5. Another photo that illustrates the lack of a pale tongue to the underside of P10, and shows nicely the subterminal 'U' on P5.

Photo 6. Note the solid black to the webs of P8-P10. You'd be expecting much more extensive grey inner webs to P8 and P9 on classic Newfoundland birds.

So what do all these features mean? Well, you're never going to be able to know for sure but there are a couple of things that go against this bird being a classic Newfoundland bird: -
- the lack of a pale tongue to P10
- one mirror on P10 only
- the inner webs to the outer primaries (P8-P10) are wholly dark with no obvious grey bleeding through, which is an obvious feature of Newfoundland birds.

Compare Photo 6 with this bird I took in Ontario in December 2011: -

Photo 7. Pretty similar in extent of black on P8 to P10 compared to the Nimmo's bird, with no grey bleeding through on the inner webs to the outer primaries

And then Photo 5 with this bird from Ontario too: -

Photo 8. Note the similar mirror to P10 and also the similarity of the darkness extending down on P10.

So what is the Nimmo's Pier bird. Is it a 'southern' American Herring Gull i.e. a bird from the Great Lakes? You can only speculate of course, but the feedback from Canadians on the Nimmo's bird is that it shows an outer wing pattern very much like the prototype AHG that breeds in Hamilton [Ontario]... and shows an average sized mirror confined to P10. It most certainly does not resemble a typical NAHG (Newfoundland type)'.

Though I'm sure some stuff about this bird has been written somewhere else on the web, perhaps this is of interest. In conclusion, this bird doesn't fit a classic Newfoundland bird (NAHG) - it doesn't exhibit that pale inner web (tongue) to P10 a la Caspian Gull - and if it hadn't been tracked throughout its life (having first turned up as a juvenile in 2004), then I imagine it would have slipped through the net.

Thanks to Kevin McLaughlin, Derek Charles and Tom Cuffe.