During the early 1980's I visited Spurn Point with some friends and we were excited to find a Kittiwake sat on one of the groynes with pinkish red legs. For a moment we thought we had found a first for the WP, but soon realised it was just a Kittiwake with unusual leg colour, when shortly afterwards we found another two birds with similar leg colour. Since then I have seen occasional other birds at Spurn and elsewhere with unusual leg colour but never any with such vividly bright orange-red legs as the bird below. Birds with unusual leg colour, which can apparently be yellow, orange, pink or red are quite rare, but are occasionally recorded, though personally I don't remember ever seeing any published photographs of a bird such as this.

On 20th June Stuart Fourt visited Bempton RSPB and photographed the "Red-legged" Kittiwake presented here. Stuart comments "whilst I was watching it, it took several "exercise" flights, returning to the same ledge a few minutes later. It appeared to be unpaired, but was accepted by the adjacent nesting Kittiwakes. Its location was the second viewpoint having turned left at the cliff edge from the track from the RSPB centre."

Birds such as this could cause confusion with Red-legged Kittiwake Rissa brevirostris from the northern Pacific region. Obviously there is a need to carefully check other characters when confronted with such a bird. The mantle should be obviously darker on brevirostris and in flight the upperwings are uniformly dark grey lacking the contrast between the paler silvery remiges and primary coverts with the darker innerwing coverts that is so characteristic of tridactyla. The black area at the wingtip is also slightly smaller than on tridactyla and the white trailing edge to the wing is more contrasting and clear cut. The leading edge of the wing when viewed head on is dark whereas on tridactyla it is white. The head of brevirostris also appears proportionally larger, with a steeper forehead and the bill comparatively shorter, and more blunt-tipped than on tridactyla. Other structural differences include the slightly shorter legs and tail and slightly longer, more pointed wings of brevirostris.
The Bempton bird pictured here has the typical head and bill shape of tridactyla as well as the same mantle colour as the birds around it. The paler primary bases are also visible between the tertials and the black primary tips.

In juvenile plumage, as well as the structural differences outlined above, there are further plumage differences from tridactyla. The dark carpal bar is entirely lacking thus brevirostris lacks the bold 'W' pattern on the uperwing, characteristic of juvenile tridactyla. The secondaries and inner primaries are whitish giving a rather Sabine's Gull-like appearance. The dark collar on the lower nape is also often less well marked than on tridactyla and this often fades to become even less noticeable during the first-winter. Unusually for a juvenile gull the tail is all white lacking the black terminal bar shown by tridactyla.

Many thanks to Stuart for use of the photos above.

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