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hello all,

just back from an excursion to romania which led us among other places to the caspian colony at murighiol saltlake and then to the mouth of danube, sfantu gheorghe, in the danube delta. unfortunately i didn't have time to take many good quality pics. there are however (as always) some slightly odd birds in the set. at murighiol, caspian gulls seemed to have a good breeding year with 250-300 bp in the colony which has extended and quite some pairs bred isolated. many chicks hatched. starting with 2 pics from murighiol (sorry for the really bad quality!). see notes below the pics.

lou

and continuing with pics from sfantu gheorghe, danube delta.

some adult birds had not started primary moult yet, ...

...others had p1 or p1 and p2 shed.
next 4 pics show another example of an adult caspian with incomplete p5 mark (remember: viewtopic.php?f=24&t=264 and theo's bird lacking a p5 mark download/file.php?id=214; wolfgang's bird: http://web.utanet.at/schwei76/T00150a.jpg)
and additionally this bird is assymetric: left p5 mark is complete but very thin, on right p5 there's only a very small black dot (like often seen on p4 in adult caspians).
cheers for the moment,

lou

some more adults

these types where the rarest present (2cy = 2 ind. photogr. ; 3cy = 4 ind. photogr.)
do some 2cy spend their 1st summer on wintering grounds?
sorry for the really bad quality (2cy), some are distant shots from a fast moving motorboat.

some comments and questions to the birds soon will follow...just have a look for now.

lou bertalan wrote:these types where the rarest present (2cy = 2 ind. photogr. ; 3cy = 4 ind. photogr.)
do some 2cy spend their 1st summer on wintering grounds?

Only a few, I would say.

probably a michahellis (2cy), a rare sight inside the danube delta, on a main branch of danube. left wing p1-4 missing, outer 2 secondaries renewed, most MC missing

Actually, those are inner primaries that have been renewed, not outer secondaries. So P1-2 are new, and P3-4 are missing.

Great to see so many reference shots from the breeding grounds!

thanks peter, i thought so (2 inner primaries renewed) from the beginning - which would have been logic since the moult gap should look immense with 4 missing primaries. but then i read the michahellis text here:
http://www.gull-research.org/ylg1cy2cy/ ... 2cymay.htm
"By early May, primary moult is in progress with an average primary moult score of 3.5 by mid-May. Most advanced birds by mid-May show an obvious gap in the inner primaries, already missing P5 (almost 10% of the birds). Out of 43 birds, none had all primaries still in place and none had P1 still in place."

that and the short looking appearance (and that i didn't find anything about secondary moult in my hurry) made me sway towards outer secondaries

edit: my conclusion was nonsenese. can't believe i misunderstood that text.

some remarks to the 4cy type birds from previous posts (bumping it into a new post):

5028 and 5027 (same bird) apparently has only a p10 mirror, lacking a p9 mirror. its bill is fully alternate adult (no dark mark) - gonys spot looks red/red-orange and some reddish hue seems to be present on upper mandible as well (not the first caspian with this trait but the first non-adult i saw).

5024 is how i'd expect a "typical" (if there is such) 4cy caspian should look, esp. shape and size of mirrors. ventral p10 tongue is about half the visible length of p10, this is about as far as in many adult michahellis but the rectangular 'cut' seems to be typical of caspian (while many caspians don't show such rectangular cut!)

5010, 5005 and 5004 has a shorter p10 tongue (less than half of visible p10)

5000, 5001 and 5002: now this one had me astonished most. either is it pretty retarded - with short p10 tongue, many dark underwing markings and a full and broad tail band(!), plus there seems to be only a small p10 mirror, unfortunately not well visible, only in pic 5002. a similar pattern often is found in same aged michahellis (but p10 mirror usually differently shaped and ventral p10 tongue slightly shorter or absent) or - maybe in eastern types of cachinnans??? such birds seem to occure in romania and central europe with a certain regularity, unfortunately we don't know their origin.

4995 and 4994 has a white shaft and pale 'borders' on both sides of it ( a feature i have not seen yet to this extent); p10 mirror is divided: rel long and without subterminal mark on outer web, smallish on inner web. p9 mirror small and round, restricted to outer web. pale iris.

- apropos pale iris - this caspian has been misidentified as argentatus recently, romanian black sea coast. it has a whitish-yellow iris: http://www.birding.hu/img/39383-PEYHFS5 ... 4GQW34N0C3

these 4cy types now also in higher resolution (click below large pic on "higher resolution") here: http://lou.bertalan.de/gulls/m_newest.php
comments welcome, esp. to bird in pics 526-528

hi all,

just back from the mouth of danube, sfantu gheorghe, where i tried to spend some minutes for hastily shooting some juvenile caspians (the only sp. seen at sfantu g.). unfortunately too hasty
what struck me was that most juvs i observed, at least the majority where very well marked, some really dark. warm afternoon light may affect colours a bit though but many actually do look like this. are these delta birds or from ukraine or both? no ring.
a slight impuls maybe for the ambitious cachinnans project mars proposed here: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=349

5864/5 is a very dark bird, looks almost like a mich, blurry 5852 could be the same could be another bird
5854, 5872 and 5856-8 are different birds
5926-33 is a juv male on the danube further upstream. note large amount of black on rectrices!
i didn't select pale birds out

sorry for showing unsharp pics.

first session, 2.09.