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Is this a Yellow legged gull (1 Viewer)

Ronayne88

Seán Ronayne
Hi all,

I've recently posted a thread asking how to id yellow legged gulls. I read the info, thanks very much - very helpful. When looking through some old pics of gulls, (of which i have hundreds) i came across a gull which may be a yellow legged gull.

The gull has a darker mantle than a argenteus herring gull, and appears to have slightly yellow legs.I have attached two pics: one of a regular argenteus herring gull, the other is of the gull in question. I am correct in using argenteus not argentatus aren't I?

From what I have read Argentatus herring gulls have a darker mantle than the argenteus type with much larger wing mirrors. If you look at the pic you will see that the wing mirrors on this bird are very small, which fits for yellow legged gull.

I'm not saying this is a yellow legged gull, just suggesting.
God, i never realised there were so many variations of herring gull. I only realised when i recently starting reading up on it.

Ps: has anyone ever read "The Macmillan field guide to Bird Identification"? It's a great book as it compares all of the "confusion" species such as the different gulls, grebes, skuas etc..

Any opinions would be much appreciated.
Cheers.

Seán. :t:
 

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I've got various additions of mcmillian. I used to use it all the time before the recent collins came out. Before i used that I used to look at Mitchell Beasley!

I'm not sure about the gull. It does appear to have Yellow Legs. In Finland this summer some of the Herring gulls had yellow legs just to throw another googly into this already complicated group.

It is hard to get the headshape from these pics and for size comparisum a GBB is not the best species for ot to be stood next to. The mantle colour looks good. The shape of the tertial cresent looks better for Herring.

I think our friends from Northern Europe are better off with this one.

I did see a good northen herring gull at Gloucester Tip around Christmas which was quite heavily streaked on the head but a lot of Herring gulls have all white heads at this time year. makes looking for Michs harder at this time of year.
 
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Hi Woodchatsrike,

When you say "tertial crescent" what do you mean? I'm trying to become familiar with all of these terms.
Cheers and thanks for the reply.
 
Hi Sean,
First, when are these taken?

The Gull in the first image looks like argenteus Herring, pale with a white mirror in p10, frequently seen in argenteus, which also often has more black on wing-tip compared to argentatus. L. argentatus usually has an all white tip to p10, but there are many individuals showing intermediate characters.
The second bird is not fully adult, dark tertial marks, and we can´t see if there is a mirror, because the GBBG is in the way, but we do see the white ptimary tips, if that´s what you mean Sean. If the gull is on the same place, it looks darker, and could be an argentatus, but it doesn´t just feel like it? It would have been better to see a side view of it, but the leggs looks thin, but not especially long, they do compared to the argenteus gull though. The structure, with a rather flattish back without the tertial step looks good for Yellow-legged, and the red gonys spot seems to 'bleed' over on to the upper mandible. Seems to have a blunt tipped bill, but difficult to see this in the image. Also a possible eye ring colour can´t be seen here.
It´s quite possible that it is a Yellow-legged Gull, but I would like to see some more images if to nail it.

JanJ
 
JANJ said:
Hi Sean,
First, when are these taken?

The Gull in the first image looks like argenteus Herring, pale with a white mirror in p10, frequently seen in argenteus, which also often has more black on wing-tip compared to argentatus. L. argentatus usually has an all white tip to p10, but there are many individuals showing intermediate characters.
The second bird is not fully adult, dark tertial marks, and we can´t see if there is a mirror, because the GBBG is in the way, but we do see the white ptimary tips, if that´s what you mean Sean. If the gull is on the same place, it looks darker, and could be an argentatus, but it doesn´t just feel like it? It would have been better to see a side view of it, but the leggs looks thin, but not especially long, they do compared to the argenteus gull though. The structure, with a rather flattish back without the tertial step looks good for Yellow-legged, and the red gonys spot seems to 'bleed' over on to the upper mandible. Seems to have a blunt tipped bill, but difficult to see this in the image. Also a possible eye ring colour can´t be seen here.
It´s quite possible that it is a Yellow-legged Gull, but I would like to see some more images if to nail it.

JanJ

Hi janj,

I made a mistake with the mirrors, I actually don't fully understand the term, can you give me any site which explains terms such as mirrors primary tips, etc. I take it by p10 you men primary ten. How did you work that out? Unfortunately I don;t have any other pics, was just taking random pics at the time (last April 17th). Both pics were taken in the same place
 
i Sean,

I only found this one in a haste (http://cyberbirding.uib.no/gull/topography.php).
The two gulls are an American Herring gull (L. smithsonianus) and a Yellow-legged Gull, probably of atlantis race, slightly darker than michahellis. The difference was not that great in upperpart tone in real life according to the observer.

If you have a look at this Yellow-legged Gull (http://www.birdforum.net/pp_gallery/showphoto.php/photo/65072/sort/1/cat/all/page/2) the spread wing shows black on 7 primaries, the inner one with a small dot only. The outermost is Primary 10 (p10) and the large white spot is the 'mirror', and next to it towards the tip is a black subterminal mark which ends with a white tip (primary tip). The next is p9, which has a small mirror, not always in Yellow-legged. Then count inwards until p5 which usually in Yellow-legged has a broad black bar over the whole feather (both outer and inner web), which usually is missing in argentatus, more frequent in argentatus although usually not that broad, thick.
When the gull is at rest (http://www.birdforum.net/pp_gallery/showphoto.php/photo/74790/sort/1/cat/all/page/1) the folded wing shows the white primary tips (if not to worn away) with p5 usually hidden under the tertials, just visible here, and with the first visible primary on the folded wing of a gull p6, 7, 8, 9 with p10 usually hidden under p9, but just visible here. What you see on the other wing, the underwing is p10 with it´s mirror.

With practise you will get the hang of it Sean. I would suggest that you get hold of 'Gulls' the book by Malling Olsen & Larsson!

I´ll be back if you have some more questions, it´s kind of late now.

JanJ
 
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