I've been asked for images of a gull I reported back in October 2013. All I have are these 2 video clips on my old phone. The green ring read XTDN so I sent the details off and got a letter from the Hiddensee Ringing Group in Germany. The bird was ringed as a nestling in June 2013 at REDDERN, which is close to Dresden and the Polish border. From what I could see on the maps available to me there is a huge lake at this location which must contain a gull colony. The paperwork was perplexing as the ringers seemed to have recorded the bird as belonging to Herring Gull "group" i.e.
argentatus/cachinnans/michahellis. This suggested to me that they were 'lumping' Herring,Yellow-legged and Caspian Gull together, or that the young bird was non-identifiable to species. As you can see in this video (I hope) the first-winter plumage was still quite challenging for Ian MacLean (he joined me to look at the bird if I remember correctly) and myself. I noticed an adult bird nearby which briefly features in the video and may have been a YL or even a hybrid. The temptation was to see XTDN as a YL but its head & bill look more Caspish,although surely (as I thought) far too 'dirty' for 1stW Casp? I even wondered if it was a LBB! I left it up in the air and hoped that the ringing details might clear that up,which of course they didn't.Typical! Anyway, it may be that I found a Caspian but wasn't confident enough to claim it. If these clips are enough to convince anyone all well and good. Otherwise, I'll stick with my original plan to 'put it down to experience'...
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