I thought it was too quiet on here re this bird...
Ed- sorry, but i havn't recieved any PM. I get notified on my e-mail and nothing has come through.
This is actually an interesting bird. The photos i've posted on here were taken in strong light (although it was directly behind me) so overemphasise the "Black Brantness" of the bird. In flat, overcast conditions, the white flanks are not as prominent as they appear here. I'd like to get some more photos to illustrate this. They are whiter than on DBBG, but not up to Brant standard. And as i'm sure you're aware and is illustarted here, the whiteness of all DBBG flanks is increased in a 3/4 facing away view. The collar however, is big! As you can see, it joins at the front and almost meets at the rear. It also has that rectangular appearance at the rear which is found on Black Brant. I've never seen a DBBG to have that shape of collar (although i've seen plenty that have collars that join at the front).
The bird is also big. It does stand out as being big in the flock, so must be a male, but Black Brant also usually appears slightly larger to me than DBBG.
As Josh has pointed out, the belly and the mantle are not dark enough for a Black Brant either. In fact, in overcast conditions, the belly is actually not the darkest on show in this flock. The mantle is identical in tone to DBBG and has a slight greyish cast, as opposed to the brownish tones usually shown by Black Brant (although interestingly, if you look at enough DBBG you'll see birds with brown tones to the mantle).
So to conclude, it shows a good collar, half decent flanks and is large. The belly and mantle however are normal for DBBG. Hence my assumption of hybrid. We've mooted the possibility of an extreme DBBG, but i think that it shows enough features to be thought of as a hybrid. I find it interesting because most hybrids found are much closer to Black Brant than this bird. In fact, many of them are classic Black Brants in appearance apart from having a broken collar (and these may in fact be genuine Black Brant...). These birds may represent just one extreme of the spectrum, with the Frampton bird being closer to the other end. Its just that these more DBBG-like birds do not get picked out as often.
Hope thats answered some questions, but if i get any more pics i'll post them in the discussion album.
Cheers,
Paul.