My latest bogey bird

08 Saturday Feb 2025

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birding, birdwatching, British birds, British gulls, Cardiff Bay birding, Larus michahellis, Yellow-legged gull

The Water rail used to be my bogey bird but, once my sightings of that beautiful skulker increased, the bogey bird title passed to the Yellow-legged gull (Larus michahellis). I’ve continued to look for one, several times thought I’ve found one, only to work out for myself or be told by birders more skilled than me that I’ve been wrong.

That same thing happened with this bird: when I posted photos online, no one stepped up to proffer an opinion and the one birder who was prompted by someone else to give his judgment decided it wasn’t a Yellow-legged gull.

So, you can imagine how very delighted I was when I received a message from our county bird recorder that he was happy to accept it as a Yellow-leg. As he wrote, the bird shows: ‘uppers mid grey (darker than Herring [gull], paler than LBBG [Lesser black-backed gull]), large size, and [in this case, quite pale] yellow legs all consistent.’ And those features are precisely why these birds can be tricky to identify – unless you have all three gull species standing side by side, the colour ‘mid-grey’ can be difficult to determine, as can the gull’s size. I was fortunate than my Yellow-legged gull was standing next to a Lesser black-backed gull as that made the comparison a little easier. Now to find another!

Y is for Yellow-legged gull

30 Thursday Dec 2021

Posted by sconzani in birds

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birding, birdwatching, British birds, Cardiff Bay birding, Yellow-legged gull

The Yellow-legged gull is my bogey bird, one I see reported by much more experienced birders than me but which I always have trouble identifying. So, imagine my delight when this 2cy bird (its age – this is the second calendar year since its birth) was mentioned on our local birders WhatsApp group. I recognised where it was standing and knew another (or the same?) Yellow-legged gull had favoured the same place last year. So, on my next walk around Cardiff Bay, I looked for and found it, and was very pleased to add a late new bird to my patch birding list for 2021, bringing the total to 119, one more than last year (though the mix of birds was different).

211230 yellow-legged gull (1)

Birding at Llandegfedd Reservoir

20 Thursday Sep 2018

Posted by sconzani in birds, nature, walks

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Barnacle goose, birding, birdwatching, British birds, Canada goose, Cormorant, Glamorgan Bird Club, Llandegfedd Reservoir, Wheatear, Yellow-legged gull

Knock-you-off-your-feet wind gusts, persistent rain showers, slippery-with-mud woodland trails, cross-country orienteering along steep-sided reservoir banks and through much-overgrown long-under-used footpaths … these all added to an adventurous and exhilarating day’s birding on yesterday’s Glamorgan Bird Club trip to Llandegfedd Reservoir, north of Newport.

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The surrounding countryside is beautiful and the trail around the reservoir offers a good variety of different habitats, from woodland to wetland, for birds and other wildlife.

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Some of our ten intrepid birders heading through the woodland, while the wind roared through the tree canopy overhead.

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Looking back towards the dam you can see how low the water level is after this summer’s drought.

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One of our frequent stops to check what birds we could spot along the water’s edge. In the foreground a congregation of Cormorants and Black-headed gulls, in the background some of the 300-plus Canada geese, all hunkered down in the face of the gale-force winds.

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Can you spot the Wheatear that was dotting along the shore, prospecting for insects?

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Alan spotted an adult Yellow-legged gull (centre right, above) amongst the Black-headed gulls, a good opportunity to point out its diagnostic features to those unfamiliar with this bird.

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I don’t think I’d ever seen so many Canada geese in one place before. They sure can make a racket!

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Even the geese were struggling with the wind gusts – here you can see them leaning into the wind as they waddle along.

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And then someone spotted a Barnacle goose amongst all those Canadas and, though its origins were much debated – wild bird or escapee from a private estate or reserve? – seeing that lovely little Barnacle was the icing on the cake of a magnificent day for me, ’cause I sort of befriended the two Barnacle geese that used to be regulars at Roath Park when I lived in Cardiff. Seeing this bird was a nice reminder of those good times.

Full credit to the ten intrepid birders on yesterday’s trip as, despite the adverse weather conditions, we still managed to identify a very respectable 36 species. They were: Greylag Goose, Canada Goose, Barnacle Goose, Eurasian Teal, Mallard, Tufted Duck, Goosander, Great Crested Grebe, Grey Heron, Cormorant, Sparrowhawk, Common Buzzard, Peregrine Falcon, Coot, Ringed Plover, Black-headed Gull, Lesser Black-backed Gull, Yellow-legged Gull, Great Black-backed Gull, Woodpigeon, Magpie, Jay, Carrion Crow, Raven, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Swallow, Long-tailed Tit, Willow Warbler, Wren, Nuthatch, Treecreeper, Blackbird, Robin, Northern Wheatear, and Pied Wagtail.

Yellow-legged gull

15 Monday Jan 2018

Posted by sconzani in birds, nature, winter

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Tags

birding, birdwatching, British birds, gull identification, Larus michahellis, Yellow-legge gull 2w, Yellow-legged gull

Back in November, I thought I’d found my first Yellow-legged gull (Larus michahellis) – and it still might have been – though I’m really not convinced about it. But, this gull, the one pictured here, is absolutely, one-hundred-percent definitely a Yellow-legged gull … even though its legs are not yellow. Have I not written previously that gulls are tricksy?!

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As you might guess from looking at it, this is not an adult gull. I’m reliably informed, by the expert birding friend who identified it for me, that this gull is in its second winter. My bird guide book tells me these gulls take four years to reach adult plumage so it’s half way there. Its age is the reason its legs are not yet yellow.

One of the main keys to its identification is the colour of the feathers on its back: Yellow-legged gulls are about mid way between the light grey of Herring gulls and the darker grey of Lesser black-backeds. The two photos above show my Yellow-legged gull, on the left, and, on the right, a Herring gull of the same age. I can see the difference in the feather colour and, to my eye, the shape of the head and bill look slightly different but I’m not sure I’d be confident of IDing one of these gulls without expert help.

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Gulls are tricksy

11 Saturday Nov 2017

Posted by sconzani in birds, nature

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Tags

birding, birdwatching, British birds, gulls, Larus michahellis, Yellow-legged gull

Gulls were doing my head in earlier this week. A Yellow-legged gull (Larus michahellis) had been reported by local birdwatchers and, as I’d never seen one and the location was on a lovely walking route along the River Taff, I thought I’d go for a look-see. “It was the only large gull on the river so that might help”, said one who had spotted it the previous day. Well, wouldn’t you know it – when I arrived at the site, there were two large gulls there and, to my gull-uneducated eye, they looked very alike.

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The grey back of the Yellow-legged gull is supposed to be somewhere between that of a Herring gull and a Lesser black-backed gull but, when you have neither of those gulls sitting right next to yours to do a comparison and when one of my possibilities was standing in deep shade and the other in full sun, it was almost impossible to see any difference. So, I followed the other advice I’d been given: “Take lots of photos and hope the experts can help you out.” Thanks to those experts, in the South Wales Birding group on Facebook, I can here present to you my first-ever Yellow-legged gull … and I wish you the very best of luck if you’re ever trying to ID one of these for yourself.

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