Brandon Marsh - Great White Egret (and gulls)

This morning I had a culinary crisis. I suffer from gluten intolerance (the doc says I'm coeliac) and so I am constantly buying and freezing gluten free bread. This morning the cupboard and freezer were bare, and for purely selfish reasons I didn't want to head to a supermarket to stock-up when I could be out birding. So I hatched a plan.

After visiting Spernal STW to try to see the Cetti's Warbler (see previous post), I would head for Brandon where I knew there was a glorious combination of a cafe, and a Great White Egret.

Great White Egret

As soon as I 'd stuffed my face I headed to the most likely hide, and opened the flap in time to see the egret fly across and land in front of me. Easy-peasy.

During the course of the visit I heard three Cetti's Warblers, and briefly saw one of them, while also noting down Oystercatcher, an array of common ducks, at least four Little Egrets, and a couple of squealing Water Rails. All very typical of the locality, and relaxing.

Then I found myself drawn to the gulls. There were a lot of Black-headed Gulls, a sprinkling of Common Gulls, and a full suite of large gulls. Back in the day, there were just three large gulls (excluding white-wingers) Herring, Lesser Black-backed, and Great Black-backed. The adults were easy, and they were all common, so the immatures got scant attention. From me anyway.

After I stopped attending gull roosts things started to get complicated. Herring Gulls came in many races, Yellow-legged Gulls for example. Then the Yellow-legged Gulls were split, into Caspian Gull and Yellow-legged Gull (and I won't even mention the eastern sub-species). Then someone decided they were species, not races. I was playing catch-up.

Which brings us to today, and this gull.

It looked rather Caspian-like, but the more I looked at it, the more confused I got. The bill looked a bit chunky, the undertail area was rather heavily speckled. Could it be a hybrid? I spent ages trying to see its spread wing, and when I did it looked Yellow-legged Gullish.

Here are some more shots.

There are plenty more in the camera, but I'll spare you.

On getting home I got my books out, checked the web, and tentatively concluded it was a Yellow-legged Gull, with a fall back position that it might be a hybrid Caspian X Herring. 

Then I sent a tweet.

Meanwhile, here's something I can identify.

PS: The Gull's identity has been confirmed as a Yellow-legged Gull by an array of Gull experts on Twitter.