Gulls to ID

[Adey Baker]

OK here's a couple of nice easy photos of Gulls to have a go at. There are no 'tricky' species here, it's just a matter of aging them and ascribing the LWHGs to 'race.'

Both photos were taken on Jan 10 2003 near a rubbish tip in Leicestershire.

[Jane Turner]

I have a serious LWHG phobia. Will look harder at these later. In both photos, my eye was immediately drawn to an interesting adult LBBG, presumably L.f.intermedius

[Jane Turner]

and is that ad L.a.argentatus at the upper left of the lefthand pic, it doesn't look to have that much white in the wing, but it seems HUGE and the mantle looks quite dark.

I'll call in the gull-philes now!

[Adey Baker]

Jane

Standing next to a busy road and 'scoping-up' a rubbish tip is enough to give anybody a LWHG-phobia not to mention the comments you get from passers-by - until you tell them from how far some of the gulls may have come!

[Brian Stone]

OK, I'll give it a go. Pic 1 from left to right top to bottom.

Adult argentatus: huge bird, mantle looks very dark, primary tips look a bit small but the angle is awkward.

Adult intermedius: might be graellsii as there is little to judge the shade against.

2nd cal year argentatus: pale greater coverts exclude LBB, terials look quite dark but appear to be notched white so I don't think this points to michahellis and the head has rather dirty streaking. Not sure you can separate argentatus and argenteus on this pic.

Found this one hard: the deep bill, sturdy stance, dull pink legs and big tertial step seem to point to Great Black-backed (4th or even 5th cal year marinus) but it doesn't look all that big overall. Could it be just a beefy intermedius LBB?

adult argenteus: typical

[Jane Turner]

I was avoiding the dark backed job in the foreground..I was verging towards mini-GBBG

[Brian Stone]

Lesser Great Black-backed :)

[Brian Stone]

Pic 2

Adult graellsii

Adult argenteus: prepared to believe this is an argentatus as its a bit of a brute and looks darker than the argenteus at the back (but that is in different light).

Adult intermedius: boy he looks dark. Have you got a fuscus candidate there?

Adult graellsii

2nd cal year argenteus

Adult argenteus: straightforward pale mantled bird

Adult graellsii

2nd cal year argenteus

[Harry Hussey]

Hi Adey,
The dark LBB in the second photo looks good for intermedius.The LBB in the centre of the 1st pic may be one as well,but hard to judge,and that large "LBB" is just odd,hard to ID from the photograph.
Would agree with other's comments on the graellsii LBB's and also on the racial ID of the Herring Gulls.
Harry H

[Jane Turner]

Chaps

I think it must be a small GBBG and we are being thrown by the size of that monster argentatus Try blocking the latter out of the pic!

[Adey Baker]

Increased tipping activity at this site coincided with a noticeable increase in numbers of larger gulls, last winter, so Carl Baggott and I decided to spend some time there - especially to see if we might locate something like a Caspian or Yellow-legged Gull!

Indeed we had both species, eventually, but what we found was a need to raise our LWHG ID up a few notches in order to understand just what species/races were present - you shouldn't claim a rarity until you have a reasonable knowledge of the commoner species (well that's what they tell us!).

On checking various websites, BB papers, etc. one thing became clear - these gulls are very variable and you have to keep an open mind on them plumage-wise and size-wise. Males are bigger than females and argentatus Herring Gulls are bigger than argenteus so with this in mind the comparitively small size of the Great Black-back in the first shot becomes much clearer.

One of the ways to 'test' our ID skills was to take various flock-shots and see if we could ID everything that was showing clearly.

Wiith this in mind my views are the same as anyone else's here and there's obviously a broad agreement on the birds involved.

In shot 1 the left-hand bird must be a large male argentatus with the small, pale GBB in the foreground being a female and I would think a 4CY with that amount of brown. The RH bird is argenteus being paler with less streaking on the head than argentatus. I think that all the young 2CY birds in both shots were argentatus mainly based on the fact that all the young birds present (not just in the shots) seemed big enough for that race - none looked noticeably small against the adult birds (although the RH one in the second photo is hard to call). The second left bird is, I think, an intermedius Lesser Black-back - it was distinctly darker than any graellsii present.

In shot 2 there is a triangle of graellsii's at the front with what I believe is a female argentatus as the second bird from the left - basically, I think the head streaking is too heavy for argenteus one of which is top right showing less streaking and paler mantle. The most noticeable bird here, (and the reason that it's in middle of the photo) is the intermedius LBB. This really did stand out as being very dark (darker than the bird in shot 1) and I obviously had hopes of a Baltic Gull with it! However, all the info or photos that I could find would suggest that fuscus should have a white head at this time. This bird has just too much streaking, I think, but it was a good try none the less!

These are my personal opinions and if anyone has any other ideas I'd be pleased to hear them. It would be interesting to know, for instance, if it's possible to seperate juv argenteus and argentatus where you haven't anything for size-comparison.

As another interesting male/female size-comparison I've attached below a shot (taken from about 1/4 mile away with the digital-zoom full on in the camera!) of the Caspian Gull, which was a small female with a huge 'buck' argentatus Herring Gull behind.

The high viewpoint coupled with the fact that the Caspian is squatting behind some grass and is not quite full sideways-on exaggerates the size difference somewhat but it still demonstrates the need to keep an open mind on these birds.

Adey

[Brian Stone]

For those with an interest in gulls there are several excellent websites including Dick Newells, which covers LWHGs very well
http://www.magikcircle.com/birds/