Snowy Seagulls

Here's a set of photos taken yesterday when a semi-blizzard struck this little subtropical Beppu. The weather forecast website said the lowest temperature was -8 celcius degree. I was shock when I woke up around 9 and found that everything was white outside the window. I quickly went out to the balcony and looked at the Spa Beach and, oh my god, it was also completely white. It's the first time in my life to see a white beach. I've always been wishing to see one at least once in my life since the time I watched the movie Eternal Sunshine and the Spotless Mind by Michel Gondry. My brain immediately sent an order for me to take my camera, grab some pieces of bread and rush out to the beach. It was freezing cold, yet I was so happy with all these photos I've got. The snow really has made these cute gulls look cuter, and the photos really look Hokkaido-ish despite the fact that they're all taken in Kyushu.

These common Black-headed Gulls look so much better with snow!

With a little bit of bread, you'll easily get photos like this.

They look so cute head-on.

More and more birds have developed the blackish feathers of breeding plumage.

The above shots were taken with my 18-55mm lens.

I've been questioning myself for a long time that do some of them actually have pinkish feathers on the underparts, or my eyes were just not right. Now with all this white snow surrounding the birds, I can see the answer clearly for myself, some of them are actually pinkish!

Some more pinky gulls!

Something unexpected, the Sun!

A funny-looking Vega Gull

This one is bad. It kept chasing the others all the time.

Alright Hokkaido,
Here I come!

Are these all 'L.vegae'?

Some more photos to finish up the set from last two weeks. Not only those yellowish legs that are problematic, even among the pure pink-legged birds, there are some bizarre variants. Some birds are just fit into the 'taimyrensis' type in terms of their shape and size, but they just clearly have pink legs. Some were very small or having totally different shape from the typical Vega, or different primary-pattern. So here are some variants which puzzled me a lot.

This bird looks smaller than usual in the first glance, with a rounded head and body, but it even looks stranger in the second glance. What's with that primary pattern!? It's P10 is almost absolutely like one of those Thayer's Gull (L. thayeri). However, the underside of the primaries doesn't look so white unlike typical thayeri, and also the brownish marking on its head doesn't seem to be so softly mottled.

Hmm...it's molt period is quite fit into L.vegae; showing some new primary feathers already fully grown but with few old ones.

This is another very interesting one. The head is very small and rounded, with a very weak bill. It is averagely smaller than normal Vega and still has relatively clean white head. The primary molt, again, fits into the L.vegae period, but the interesting thing is the next day I found another bird which looks almost identical to this one, but it has clear yellow legs. Are these birds which are smaller and have small rounded head females? But I don't see these kinds of extremely differences in shape like this so often.

Its P9 seems to be slightly longer or equal to its P10, but they both have some broken edges. Why? If its P10 is still growing, then it should look newer than this. Both of them seem to be the old ones. That's so strange.

When I first saw this one, I thought it's gonna be the first typical winter plumage Vega Gull of the season. But when comparing to the others, the grey part on its back is actually visibly paler. This bird is quite fit to the first verse that Nial Moores of the Birds Korea website describes a 'birulai' or Birula Gull as "...rather icier-looking tone to the grey of the upperparts, and structurally look closer to the birds considered to be Taimyr Gull, in that they appear rather neat and compact; show rounded-looking heads and flattish-backs; a slightly longer primary projection; and a cleaner pink tone to the legs." But for the next sentence, "In addition, they tend to have rather finer head streaking, without the smudgy look of most Vegas.", this bird just suddenly falls off. However, there are several more sources which describe 'birulai' as something totally different from this, like having darker mantle, etc., so I'm still puzzling about how the real 'birulai' looks like.

Some other very typical Vegas

The one and only 4cy bird of the day

Why so many 'taimyrensis'?

These photos are from the same day as the earlier entry. I was quite puzzled to see so many Herring Gulls having yellow or yellowish legs. Almost 50% of the flock seemed to have non-pink legs. I would have just counted them all as the 'taimyrensis' gull, if there was no such extreme varieties like what many individuals seemed to be having. I'll share some of the strange non-pink legged gulls I found here.

The first individual; this bird has longish head and bill shape. The primary-projection also seems to be rather long. Giving an impression of a Mongolian Gull rather than a normally compact Taimyr. However, the molt doesn't seem to fit in the Mongolian type. Most of the primary feathers are still old and only few new feathers are still growing shortly.

The same bird; note its large, longish shape like Mongolian Gull but the primary-molt is quite late like 'taimyrensis'.

Late evening light makes the bird's legs look more yellowish.

This bird even looks stranger. It exactly looks like a typical Vega Gull in terms of shape, including head, neck, bill length and size, and its primary-projection length. What is bizarre about this bird is that it has yellow legs. The brownish streaking on the head seems to be intermediate between the dirty, blurring streaks of Vega and the sharp, thin, restricted streaking of Taimyr. I believe this individual should not be a 'taimyrensis', but rather be some subspecies or variant of 'vegae'. Is it a 'birulai'? I don't know, since I just couldn't find any exact description of how a 'birulai' bird should look like. One source says that 'birulai' has paler mantle, icier-looking and cleaner pink legs than normal 'vegae', but some others just say random things like 'birulai' should have darker grey mantle than normal 'vegae', has yellow legs, or has smaller rounded-head and compact body like the 'taimyrensis', so I just have no idea how exactly a 'birulai' looks like.

This is another bird which doesn't look so 'taimyrensis' except for its non-pink legs.

This bird has longish primary-projection impression.

This is the most typical 'taimyrensis' of the day. It has smallish, compact shape, flat back, late primary-molt and just the right amount of head-streaking for an ideal 'taimyrensis' at this time of year. I'm just so happy to have found this one, laugh.

What a complex...someone please just finish the research on these eastern gulls for the sake of my curiosity please.