Bulgaria, November 2018, Day 5- Varna Gulls

We are still waiting for the investment prices to come in so today we spent the morning at Varna bay gull watching and then in the afternoon we made our way back to Shipka. The temperature was four degrees on the coast and was minus 5 by the time we got to the Shipka Pass, which was a picture postcard snowy wintery scene (and a deadly icy descent in the car).

A nice collection of gulls at Varna. This area is a major transition area between Yellow-legged Gull and Caspian Gull so there is plenty of variation and intergrades.  Here's a few specimens, first the different age classes of typical Yellow-legged Gull, then a first-winter Caspian Gull (the only age class present), then a few presumed integrades/hybrids and finally some of the extreme variation in first-winter plumages present which has presumably been generated from the introgression between Yellow-legged and Caspian. The boundaries between variation and hybrids is subjective of course. 

YELLOW-LEGGED GULL 

First-winter

YELLOW-LEGGED GULL 

2nd-winter 

YELLOW-LEGGED GULL

3rd-winter

YELLOW-LEGGED GULL

Adult 

CASPIAN GULL

First-winter 

 The washed out remiges of this bird could be a feature of the local transitional conditions. All pictures of the same bird. 

INTERGRADES/HYBRIDS

First-winter 

 INTERGRADE/ HYBRIDS 

2nd-winter  

 PRESUMED YELLOW-LEGGED GULL Variants

First-winter birds 

and an Eastern Jackdaw to wash down the gull overdose  with it's characteristic silvery neck shawl