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One for you birders – hello Lynn!!! – adult Black-headed Gull in winter plumage, flying over a Coot, on the freshwater of a local reservoir.
Fieldmarks for the gull: red legs; red, black-tipped bill; the black mark behind the eye; the white blaze on the leading edge of the wing.
And the Coot: actually the Eurasian Coot; prominent white shield on the forehead, and bill white too – and never any red nodules (that’s what the fieldguide calls them!) above the white forehead shield.
Other recent bird pictures are here: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 .
Click onto the image to open a larger version in a separate window, and click onto that image to open a (rather grainy!) even larger version.
Technique: Z 6 with 70-300 Nikkor lens used in APS-C format to give 450mm; 800 ISO; Lightroom, using the Camera Portrait v2 profile; Herons Green, Chew Valley Lake, Somerset; 18 Oct 2019.
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FATman Photos 
Hello back, Adrian! The other day I was in a park at the edge of the island, camera & binocs in hand, scanning the water, when a serious birder walked up with his scope & tripod. He was a very nice guy as it turned out, and he tried to teach me about our local gulls. I confessed to him that gull identification seemed a lot easier on the east coast. Being from NY, he agreed that US east coast gulls are easier to sort out. (I thought, good, I don’t sound totally idiotic). He said a problem here is hybridization, which adds another layer to already confusing winter and sub-adult plumages. I just threw up my hands and said, “Look, there’s a Great blue heron”, and “Hear that oystercatcher?” (easy species on both coasts). 🙂 At least I won’t feel so bad about failing to ID gulls, or not even trying now. Cheers!
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Haha, well done you! I continue to love birds very much, but must say that I avoid “serious” birding and birders like the plague – I would HATE to be involved in all of that again, photography is so much more creative and rewarding >>> and the resulting images so much more satisfying than species lists!!! 🙂
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Lovely little gulls , nice shot.
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Thank you, Paula, thank you. A
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Excellent shot, A!!!
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Ken, thank you very much! I was a birder for decades, and maybe that never really goes away – which is something I’m glad about! A 🙂
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Striking bird, wonderfully caught in flight.
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Thank you, my friend! A 🙂
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Beautiful action image! I shall look out for the markings when I next see gulls 🙂
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This is quite a small gull, its flight almost tern-like, not like the bigger Herring and Lesser Black-backed beasts, and neither of those have the blazing white forewing – in spring it gets a dark brown hood – so its not black-headed at all! 🙂
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