Storm Bert Day Two

Quite dissappointing today. Despite there being Cory's Shearwater and Leach's reported in the Solent and multiple Sabine's Gull in East Sussex and Kent, if anything there were less seabirds off Selsey this morning than yesterday. A Little Gull was the highlight here but I missed that but was still nice to see the Kittiwakes on the move (about 90 again in about two and half hours). Ebird list from this morning HERE.

Kittiwakes on the move 

First-winter Kittiwake (above and below, same bird). Amazing how the vivid dark markings on the upperwing is completely invisible on most of the underwing except for the other primary and the outer primary tips) and the alula? 

Quite a few smart Red-breasted Mergansers going through today 

Great Northern Diver battling into the wind

A few close Gannets going by

Also had this rather striking first-winter white-headed gull (above and below).  The contrasting white head and neck shall suggests a Yellow-legged/Caspian Gull and the pale upperparts with what appears to be pencil streaking is more consistent with a Caspian Gull. There are plain grey mantle features which appear light grey. With any mantle feathers in a Yellow-legged gull I would either expect pale edged with large dark centred or anchor shaped markings or plain darker blue-grey feathers.  The upperwing is very dark and appears mainly juvenile with some moulted inner coverts but the overall lack of chequered appearance of the coverts also fits Caspian more. The tail doesn't seem to taper towards the tip (also pro-Caspian) and the underwing on the image below looks whitish (another pro-Caspian feature). However there is dark mask around the eye and some light head streaking and the head and bill are quite compact (which could be consistent with a female bird anyway). For me the dark markings in the head and the structure indicates a mix of features but lots of pro-Caspian features but a not a pure bird and therefore presumably an intergrade.