Influx of white-winged Gulls
In the past few weeks there has been an influx of Glaucous and Iceland Gulls into Assynt and the north and west coasts of Scotland.
Shetland has also had a combined count of 500 white-winged gulls recently.
In Assynt they have been seen in Lochinver Harbour, Bay of Culkein, Clashnessie Bay, Oldany Estuary and Loch a’ Chairn Bhain.
These gull species are referred to as white-winged gulls simply because they don’t have black and white tips to their wings. Common and Herring gulls are the two most obvious examples of our more frequently seen gulls that have the black and white wing tips
The Iceland Gull, Larus glaucoides and the Glaucous Gull, Larus hyperboreus are the two white-winged species we are most likely to see. Don’t ask why they couldn’t have matched the species name to the common name; things are never that simple! It actually gets worse; the Iceland gull doesn’t occur in Iceland but is found in Greenland and Arctic Canada. The Glaucous Gull occurs in Iceland.