After a couple of days working on mainland it was nice to be back birding on Unst with the strong winds looking favourable to produce some Gulls to search through. In the event there was only a trickle of Gulls arriving through Burrafirth that included 4 Glaucous and an Iceland in an hour spent there. Robbie then refound his 'Viking Gull' at Westing, so I soon joined him spending a couple of hours watching it during which time I also saw 3 Glaucous Gulls and an Iceland Gull.
Burrafirth: 4 Whooper Swasn, Oystercatcher, Guillemot, 4 Glaucous Gulls & an Iceland Gull.
Westing: 8 Purple Sandpiper, 'Viking Gull', 3 Glaucous Gulls and a Iceland Gull.
First-cycle Iceland Gull at Burrafirth
Second-cycle Glaucous Gull at Burrafirth
Adult Glaucous Gull at Burrafirth
Purple Sandpiper at Westing
Gulls at Westing
Third-cycle Glaucous Gull at Westing
Adult Glaucous Gull at Westing
First-cycle Iceland Gull at Westing
hybrid Glaucous x Herring Gull at Westing
Robbie found this interesting bird a couple of days ago when I was working on mainland. It was quickly identified by Dante, Jamie & Josh from Robbie's images. I was pleased to see it in the flesh today as most of the 'Viking Gulls' that I've (knowingly!) seen since living on Shetland have been large brutes with a Glaucous-like two-toned bill. This was a more interesting individual in matching some of the Herring Gulls in size but being slightly smaller than the majority of the Herring Gulls present. However, as most of the Herring Gulls on Iceland are argenteus presumably some of the hybrid offspring and further backcrosses with argenteus are likely to be slightly smaller than the argentatus that predominate here at this time of year. In fact, Adriaens et al. (2022) describe the size and structure of Viking Gulls as being generally similar to European Herring Gull.
