What were these birds?

[abstibus]

This morning when I was walking my dog I saw a small flock of seagulls on the grass and there were two other birds with them. This was about 300 metres from the sea (Atlantic).
These birds were about the same size as a seagull but they had what looked like grey/brown wings. They had a different walk and their call was more like a two-tone whistle. Does this make sense? Does anyone jnow what they might be?
Many thanks.

[gen2]

Sounds very much like juvenile seagulls to me. They don't get the full adult plumage for 2 or 3 years.

BTW, You don't say what kind of seagulls they were so I can't say what kind of juveniles, but it will be a preety sure bet they were both the same.

[gen2]

Did they look like this?

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1406/832360694_ c64f20d39f_o.jpg

[wildwood]

Juvenile seagulls have grey/brown wings and in the first year body but as they walked different and had a different call, it could be one of many different wading birds. There is no way of telling without a picture or more elaborate description.

[wildwood]

Sorry gen2, there were no answers when I started typing this. Great minds think alike, I suppose. lol

[Cetti]

Juvenile Terns, maybe.

The Sandwich Tern has a very distintive two note call, so does the Roseate.

[gen2]

I have yet to see a tern as big as a seagull Cetti.

Young seagulls have a different call and a different posture when they are hoping to be fed by a parent. That, along with their brown colour, would easily lead someone to think they were a different species.

All other possibilities would be a lot smaller than the gulls.

I am assuming the gulls were the large Herring Gulls or Lesser Black-backed Gulls (they are the common ones we get around here (Kirkcaldy))

[Cetti]

Don't be so aggressive, gen2!

it's not a competition and the idea is to help the poster not score points of each other. I said 'maybe' a tern - and that's what I meant!

The common Black-Headed Gull is more or less the same length as the Roseate and Sandwich Tern. Slimmer, yes, but the same length.

[gen2]

Sorry Cetti, didn't mean to come across in that way.

My view is that it is highly unlikely that terns will be ashore, on grass, amongst seagulls and where humans walk their dogs. We have sandwich terns here and the closest they come is offshore rocks - even then, they fly away if a dogwalker goes near the shoreline.

[abstibus]

Thank you all for your replies. I am really puzzled - I have looked at various sites and can't find them. What made me notice them was that they walked more like a pheasant and had short beaks and this funny whistling call.
Another thing puzzling me - when I logged on to AB, I forunnd that my question had been posted twice and one had the message, ' This question is banned'. Can anyone tell me why? It was a perfectly sensible question about birds. Now AB is asking me to post a video!!

[abstibus]

Sorry -misspelt 'found'

[Cetti]

One of the oddities of AB annemollie is if you inadvertantly post twice, one is counted as banned. I know it doesn't make sense, but neither does this site on occasions.

Ok, gen2, kiss and make up.
Sometimes words don't come across the way we wish, do they?