My Saturday Bird this week is the Black-headed Gull (Chroicocephalus ridibundus), a small gull that breeds in much of the Palearctic.
The birds in the photo are winter plumage adults who lost their dark head feathers in the autumn. They’re standing in a shallow section of Hurleston Reservoir near Nantwich in southern Cheshire, England, a lot of them are preening.
In the 1990s Hurleston Reservoir was the location of a large winter gull roost that included thousands of Black-headed Gulls.
Throwback Thursday travels back to 2006 and an early morning visit to the Lake Huron shoreline in Southampton for the sunrise.
I found some immature Red Knot on the shoreline and spent some time with them. After a while they were comfortable enough to feed, bath and preen while I photographed them.
A well camouflaged immature Red Knot preening on the Lake Huron shoreline in Southampton, Ontario.
Throwback Thursday travels back to Hurleston Reservoir, Cheshire, England in the 1990s.
A group of Black-headed Gulls (Chroicocephalus ridibundus) in winter plumage standing in a shallow section of the reservoir. I noticed that a surprising number of the birds were taking the opportunity to preen while standing in the water.
I’ve mentioned in previous posts about species having their common English names or their scientific names changed after DNA testing. In this case the scientific name has been changed since the photo was taken and captioned. So many species have had a name changed that these days l Google a species before I write a blog post or caption photos.
