Hi Ian et al,
Ian Peters said:
I am amazed that we had a page or so of vitriolic exchanges. My view that from the images we had herring gull and that was just my opinion but it seems some other people were determined to "have their way". Should it not be that we are as helpful as possible and leave it at that? Discuss the merits and shortcomings of an idea sure enough but is it really necessary to be proved right. I have noticed this on a couple of ID threads and I hope this is not a case of trying to rubbish someone else's ID skills because that would be nothing short of childish and totally unhelpful to the person asking. Truce?
For the record,I feel that I have to comment here,for fear that my intentions have been misunderstood.If I were to base my thoughts on the bird solely on the available pics,I would have possibly called it a Herring Gull,as the legs
seemed pinkish,and features such as mantle shade etc can be very difficult to evaluate,either from photos or in the field.
The fact that I didn't is based largely on two things:
1)I know Tristan through correspondence,and if he thinks it may have been a Yellow-legged Gull then it surely WOULDN'T be a (typical?) Herring Gull(
argenteus/
argentatus),as he is a competent birder.
2)Even if the observer were unknown to me even by reputation,the written description provided mentioned yellowish legs and the impression of an attenuated rear end,two features that don't really come across well in THESE particular pics.
With regard to the above,it must be stressed that,in many cases,video footage and photographs/digital images are an extremely valuable record of the appearance of a bird,and one only has to look at the hundreds of good and not so good images that allow one to identify the bird conclusively.In this case,however,we have a bird that,at the best of times,needs to be identified with caution,especially outside of the key areas of occurrence.Tristan knows this,and wouldn't have posted the pics and described what he saw otherwise.Unfortunately,the best feature to conclusively rule out Herring x LBB Gull(i.e.the pattern of the spread wing) is not visible in these shots.
I also concede that a few pics may have helped when I failed to call that pale 1st-w
smithsonianus Herring Gull at Dingle last Feb,as I could have forwarded these to more experienced birders than myself,but yet my comments cautioning against basing an ID solely on the pics(at least in this case,where some features were at variance with what the observers saw in the field) were taken by some to show my opposition to photos/videograbs etc,which is certainly not the case.
Apologies to anyone who I may have offended,but I certainly refuse to apologise for stressing the importance of a good set of field notes,even in this age of digital photography.
Harry
