I´m not dead but there havn´t been any large gulls in the Austrian Danube/Donau-system in the last weeks due to the very mild winter this year. otherwise I heard of 1500 (!) Caspian Gulls only in a small flat steppe lake near Neusiedler See in December, in a time when most of the large gulls should have left this area.
Last days with these extreme low temperatures some gulls from the north arrived and my friends have read some rings, even a Dutch ringed Common Gull was found for the very first time in Austria!
So yesterday I also went to Krems, where the gulls are roosting on the ice of the authorities port after feeding at the compost dump near Gneixendorf. Just when I arrived I saw the police ship, destroying completely all ice in the port!
But soon I had found the large gulls, floating downstream on pieces of ice, later flying upstream to repeat this game again. So I was able to study large gulls for the first time this winter.
2 extremely dark coloured first winter CG among them, one with almost blackish scapulars well contrasting with pale mantle and brownish coverts. The other one rather dark looking overall.
- 2cy CG with blackish scapulars
- cach1.jpg (228.94KiB)Viewed 2416 times
- dark 2cy CG
- cach5.jpg (265.74KiB)Viewed 2416 times
- Herring Gull
- YLG2.jpg (238.75KiB)Viewed 2416 times
Some pics of floating gulls and 231P are following.
- floating Caspians and Common Gulls
- cach4.jpg (204.68KiB)Viewed 2416 times
- yellow legged cach
- cach6.jpg (243.12KiB)Viewed 2416 times
- 231P, 6cy
- 231P.jpg (197.83KiB)Viewed 2416 times
Wolfgang