Caspian Gull, (1 Viewer)

Caspian Gull, Norfolk

Saw this picture posted on 'Birds of the Heath and Yare Valley' by David Bryant (LightThisCandle on BF), presumably taken recently in Norfolk. Thought it looked an interesting bird, i've never seen a Caspian Gull looking as small as surrounding Common or Black-headed Gulls.

Unfortunately though it seems to have disappeared from his blog, luckily I had kept a copy to discuss it with some mates, hope David doesn't mind me posting it here, i've no doubt he'd like some clarification too.... would be interested to hear your opinions.


D

strange thing, would have wanted to see more pics with it...

Yep, strange indeed! Maybe David's got some more pics... this one looks like it's been edited a bit to me so perhaps some originals to get a better idea of colours in the pic would help too. Not sure there's a way to tag people on BF so hopefully he'll see this.

D

I'm told offline it looks like a stonewall photoshop job but I'd prefer to think it may be a dwarf Caspian Gull. If there were three of them together, I'd be even more convinced.

cheers, alan

I would agree it looks like a Caspian Gull, but does appear very small and very blue. That said I remember seeing a photo of a bright blue Common Gull from Grafham Water several years ago; that bird was presumed to have managed to cover itself in some sort of dye so perhaps something like that has happened here.

Josh

EDIT forget all this, but here is the colour information if anyone wanted to talk about "legitimacy" of the photograph.

dan pointon said:

...would be interested to hear your opinions.

Click to expand...

Ha ha! Yeah, right. Opinions about what exactly? Did you 'luckily' save the whole blog post by any chance? A bit of context would be nice. Mind you, judging by the various mealy-mouthed comments above, perhaps opinions were not actually what you were after here...

Oh how I've missed BF

Gavin Haig said:

Ha ha! Yeah, right. Opinions about what exactly? Did you 'luckily' save the whole blog post by any chance? A bit of context would be nice. Mind you, judging by the various mealy-mouthed comments above, perhaps opinions were not actually what you were after here...

Oh how I've missed BF

Click to expand...

When something doesn't fit with what you would expect to see in a given situation, it's normal to question it. I was sent the pic by a friend, asking if I thought there was anything weird about it.... the bird clearly looks like a Caspian Gull, and normally most would be happy to label it as such, but some things such as the comparative size don't seem to fit. So, i'm asking here to see if anyone thinks there is potential for these indescrepancies to be within normal variation, or if there is something more going on here.

Sure, I quite likely expected it would come back that the images had been edited, but I don't see why that's a problem? It seems to me you're somehow pointing me towards the moral lowground when there is potential that someone has completely fabricated a picture in order to deceive people. Where that is the case, it certainly wouldn't be best left to lie, save for the time we're all heading over to Norfolk for some mega rarity presented in a doctored photo. If someone (including the OP) could give a decent valid reason to explain why the pics look off, then I would happily take that, hence my request for opinions.

If you want to moan about it then that's your prerogative - but in my view querying these kind of things is the correct thing to do.

D

dan pointon said:

Not sure there's a way to tag people on BF so hopefully he'll see this.

Click to expand...

Private messages work pretty well on BF...unless of course one prefers to grandstand for the 'public good'.

If this is the same bird there was photos of a gull in flight on his blog/on birdforum? that was thought to be a Casp but was a Common Gull

IMO, it's a Common Gull with a strange bill...