Caspian Gull ~ Juv/1st.W ~ Dungeness, Kent - 29.08.16

Calm South East winds 5/6mph and low tide upon arrival ..

Broken cloud with sunny spells and best of all next to nobody about !!

The gulls slowly began to gather to c.120 not exactly fantastic but a little after 4pm and this Caspian made an appearance which is the 4th bird for August ...

  

Parallel sided bill, long, gently curved upper

Some 2nd gen Scapulars replaced

Solid Terials with white thumbnail tips

Pale under-wing and neck shaul

Finely barred tail and non tapering solid band

Greater coverts seem a bit heavily marked could be within variation or influence from another ...

Upper tail pattern with circular larger outer markings with finer inner

Dropped vent

Venetian blinds

Secondaries giving a nice dark trailing edge to wing

All together a very smart bird ..

Caspian Gull ~ Juv ~ Dungeness, Kent - 28.08.16

South-Westerly winds today and this probably was the cause for a lot less gulls around the fishing boats ..

An Adult and 3 juvvy type YLG's also a small reasonably long winged LBBG which was baltic looking ..

Later in the afternoon I was joined by ML & DW who drew my attention to this following bird in the sitting position ..

It wouldn't stand up or move, prefering to go to sleep but when it did finally move it flew out to sea then sat on the water and drifted a mile away not to be seen again ..

Caspian Gull ~ Juvenile

  

Caspian Gull ~ Juv/1st.W ~ Dungeness, Kent - 27.08.16

East winds today and a rise in gull numbers with plenty of Juv LBBG's ..

The strong winds must of kept people away as it was nice and quite with no disturbance and the resting bird count steadily grew ...

16:50 and I picked this Caspian out at the waters edge it was an all to brief 5 minutes when it flew north towards Greatstone not to return, hopefully it will reappear ...

A different bird  from the juvenile which was 2 weeks ago on the 14th .. 

Caspian Gull ~ Juvenile ~ Dungeness, Kent - 14.08.16

Sunday turned out to be a good day, clear skies, sunny, harsh light at times and a easterly breeze of 12mph ..

East winds are in your face when at the fishing boats and in turn means that the gulls are flying away from you but there flight is much more interesting for images ...

Having set-up on the beach about 3pm it was only 15 mins later when I picked up a Caspian Gull coming in over the boats, down on to the beach with the resting flock ..

A small probable female bird and a smart juvenile ..

The rest of the afternoon and early evening was spent keeping tabs on this bird, trying to get it in the best of the available light, which proved to be quite hard at times ...

   

Ebro Delta, Spain ~ July '16

Easyjet out on Friday 29th July and back on Monday 1st August but the flight back was cancelled so it was  night in a hotel and back on the 2nd ..

Mornings were spent at Punta de la Banya and evenings at Port d'llla de Mar ...

A few images were gained on a difficult trip for photograph, dull light, un-cooperative birds and to many people !!