Mystery bird

mahluf · #1 (**permalink**) 12-10-2009, 12:21 AM

I'm not altogether a total lemon when it comes to bird identification, but I don't recognise this profile at all. Do you? Taken last Monday on the Moray Firth, it was just a single, large bird flying low over the water, and beyond the limit of what my 100 - 400 Canon IS can comfortably pull in, so apologies for the fuzzy blow-up. My best stab is that it may be a diver of some sort - but the wing shape and cone-shaped beak don't quite ring true.

thunder · #2 (**permalink**) 12-10-2009, 12:25 AM

Possibly juvenile Gannet?

henrya

mahluf · #3 (**permalink**) 12-10-2009, 12:35 AM

Well, I did the Bass Rock trip back in July, and of the 150,000 Gannets there, I think I photographed all but seven of them, so in that sense, I'm familiar with Gannets. But I'd more or less dismissed Gannet as a possibility, because the beak seems much too cone-like.

Picidae · #4 (**permalink**) 12-10-2009, 04:52 AM

Hi Mahluf

As Henyra says, it's a 1cy (first calendar year) Northern Gannet.

david156 · #5 (**permalink**) 12-10-2009, 05:37 PM

hi.

Yes. Thats a gannet.
Had a bit of a close call with one earlier in the year that crash landed on the beach!!

mahluf · #6 (**permalink**) 12-10-2009, 06:49 PM

OK - I'm convinced. I should have warned you I'm a lifetime sceptic in all things! Perhaps I just wanted it to be something a little more exotic, flying in from South Africa for a week's hols! Many thanks Henrya, Picidae and david156 for your deliberations, and a fine (and helpfully explanatory) picture David - almost a shame that the juveniles have to shed that spectacular 'starling' coat - it's beautiful.