Monday, September 30, 2019

Shy Napoleon

I tried out a new lens, a 70 - 300 mm. It turned out not to be really compatible with my camera body, so I returned it, but it would have been wonderful for those shy shorebirds. Here are some Bonaparte's gulls, well beyond the reach of my present lenses.

Bonaparte's gull, Xema sabini, non-breeding. In season they have black heads.

They are the smallest of our gulls, about the size of a crow, and relatively shy.

On the beach they are always foraging at the very edge of the water; they don't pester human visitors asking for treats.

I got too close. The leading edge of the wing shows white in flight. There's another gull flying with them, obviously larger, with a yellow bill. Bonaparte's have black bills.

The species is named for Charles Lucien Bonaparte, a French ornithologist (and nephew to the former French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte)... (Wikipedia)

No comments:

Post a Comment

I'm having to moderate all comments because Blogger seems to have a problem notifying me. Sorry about that. I will review them several times daily, though, until this issue is fixed.

Also, I have word verification on, because I found out that not only do I get spam without it, but it gets passed on to anyone commenting in that thread. Not cool!

Powered By Blogger