Yellow-legged Gulls ~ Juveniles in July

July brings the first arrivals of juvenile Yellow-legged Gulls from Europe to the South East.

With most of the other large gulls looking bleached and worn these big, dark and fresh looking birds stand out.

The 5th was our first bird at the fishing boats, Dungeness with DW having a few earlier in the week at The Patch and RB scoring even earlier at Greenwich !!

05.07.15

   

11.05.15

19.07.15

Very interesting bird with a heavily barred tail
Image No: 35 is the same bird as above just in better light

25.07.15

These images highlight the plumage variation in Yellow-legged Gulls from fairly umarked tails to heavily barred and the same for the underwings from dark markings to hardly any markings just uniform brown .. 

Yellow-legged Gull ~ Juv ~ Dungeness, Kent - 05.07.15

A good afternoon spent in the company of RB and RS at the fishing boats, Dungeness, Kent ...

The first YLG juveniles on the same date as last year, although RB had a few earlier in the week at Greenwich, London on the Thames and DW had one at Dungeness ..

Three Norweigan ringed GBBG's and a couple of Thames gull ringed birds, also a juv Med Gull and a few Juv BHG's going past ..

Also MC came down and told us about the Roseate Tern in the feeding flock which we later picked out ... Thx

Here's my image of the day ..

Best viewed large !! 

  

1/2000 ~ F7.1 ~ iso 320 @ 300mm