Cuckmere Caspo - Self Found 16/12/12

Having been completely unaware of any Caspian Gulls in the Cuckmere earlier today, I picked up Bob initially to do a roost at Charleston Reedbed, but seeing hundreds of Gull settled just north of Exceat Bridge, we decided to look at these.

I started scanning, and 10 Gulls in I instantly found an adult CASPIAN GULL walking through the group. It stopped and unfortunately went to sleep, but every now and then raised it's head and did a few wing stretches, enabling all wing detail to be seen.

With falling light, we concentrated on just this bird, but a brief scan didn't produce any more potential candidates. There were however a couple of argentatus Herring Gulls.

Having been really pleased of finding a Caspo on the patch, and in Sussex for the first time, I was slightly gutted to find out a maximum of 3 had been seen earlier in the day, but I'l have it as a self-find for now! However looking at DC's pics, my bird does seem to have more black on the bill, so it could well be a different bird, heres hoping!!

Other features seen not in the images below were long primary projection with predominant white on P10 with a black sub-terminal band creating a clear mirror.

 note the pear-shaped head, dark eye high on the head, long pale bill with dark sub-terminal tip on lower mandible, a disjointed neck, bulging chest, and long thin legs, coloured a very pale yellow.

 this image reveals a long slanting forehead, long lores, dark eye, bulging chest and a much clearer colouration of the legs.

 the size of the bird in this image probably makes it a male, and the dark mantle is also very noticeable.

both Caspian (top centre asleep) and Argentatus Herring Gull (bottom, second from right) in this image.