Gull-fest

I admit it- I am not a fan of the large-white headed gull complex! In all honesty this is largely due to the fact that I often find the identification of these birds rather tricky at sea- this is largely due to the fact that my perception of individual birds can change so drastically due to factors such as light, angle of view and of course distance. The other factor limiting my ID abilities is that I have avoided studying these birds throughout much of my birding career!  Whine over- it was good to actually see some birds today! A collection of gulls early morning was a great start. Most of the birds appeared to be lesser black-backs of the race graellsii although some birds appeared very much darker and very uniform across the mantle and upper wings which was rather suggestive of the fuscus race 'Baltic gull'. I will have to read up on their distributions when I get home as I am not too sure that the fuscus race are known to be distributed this far west? A few yellow-legged gulls were nice to see and even in the very poor light a prominent black band on P5 could be picked out. Bird of the day though was a rather distant Med. gull. The other highlight of the day was a very distant great skua- a real treat!