Iceland Gulls

Just for a change I went along to Beckton Creekmouth Nature Reserve this morning for a spot of Gulling. With a few of the London birders doing well with finding Caspian and Iceland Gulls here, I thought I would give it a go to.

Almost straight away on checking the large Gulls sitting on top of the industrail roofs along the creek was a darkish 2cy Iceland Gull. It stayed only for a few seconds then flew round in a large circle before heading out to the river to sit on the mud past the outflow briely before sadly flying east and was lost to view. This bird has smudges on P10 and P9 which hopefully you can see in the images below - Kumlien's type or just a odd Iceland Gull?

 I started checking through the large group of Gulls sitting on the mud along the tide line but couldn't pick out anything else other than 6 Blackwit, Common Sandpiper and a few Redshank, so I went back and checked the roofs again and found a really pale 2cy Iceland Gull. Armed with slices of brown bread I spun some out for the gull to tempt it  closer which it did so but only briefly before it too was lost to view in the melee. Two white - wingers in a morning in London, I 'm happy with that!

The light was grey and overcast so I've used ISO 800, note the P10 and P9 to the bird above.

The images below are of the second bird, a nice pale bird.

On Saturday afternoon Paul H and Dave Mo had a Iceland Gull here to and checking their images it seems to be another bird..