Sooty Gull - Lchthyaetus hemprichii
I have become a bit underwelmed by UAE birds in recent months - I just haven't been trying hard enough. There is a list of 400-500 birds that come through this part of the world and we sit on an important flyway. I need to get out more and I need to hit the books and make the birds a bit like golf shots. I need to get out for Crab Plover, get up the mountains for Barbary Partridges, scour the desert for a Hoopoe Lark (my Unicorn).
How did I not notice these Sooty Gulls flying around all this time. Its part of my overall downer on gulls ! These are smart gulls though a little easier to identify - yes they are the sooty looking ones ! They have a large range stretching from the Middle East through Asia and associate with fishing villages !
With the modicum of research I could have developed a strategy for Sooty Gull rather than accidentally wandering into some - Be in Middle East (tick) - find fishing village with men haggling over the price of fish (tick) - locate Sooty Gull (tick !).
...Scare Sooty Gull by getting too close while excited - scare all Gulls in fact and then panic and run off poor in flight shots (tick). Going back to post 250 you can see that they were there tucked in with the Armenian Gulls - another ignored Gull due to lack of interest/affinity with haggling fisherman etc.
It has even taken me a couple of weeks to write this post as deep down I just don't get excited by Gulls - seabirds generally. Too much like hard work on the identification stakes. For example the bigger black mirror on the Herring type Gull in the top flight shot above turns it into an Armenian Gull - whats happens if you don't have a Herring Gull next door to compare though ?? A lot of fussing about is what with books and websites and even debates online with people you have never met on bird sites.
Anyway insomnia won the day this morning and we have two new shiny gulls on the Daily Bird - and I have to say I quite this Sooty Gull - the family waited patiently while I stromped off for 5 minutes at the end of Dhow trip to get the shots. I got my cultural shot of Oman as well.
Sooty Gull, Lchthyaetus hemprichii
Oman, Dibba
February 2013
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