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Gulls (NE Italy) (1 Viewer)

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Hippolais

Luca Boscain
Today I've taken part to a pelagic trip in the Adriatic sea offshore the Po delta. I photographed a lot of gulls, focusing on what was something different from the proper YLGulls... Is any of my birds not a YLG?
 

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Tib78 said:
3 looks like a (well marked) sub-adult YLG
Click to expand...

same thoughts here, thibaut. especially due to its yellow legs/feet. but what age should it be then? a 3rd cycle YLG hardly has such a large p9 mirror, smudging goes far down on neck/breast and 34d gen. secondaries do have some dark centers. i'd also expect some more black on p4 in a 3rd winter YLG. would be extremely retarded if a 4th cycle! odd bird anyhow.
 
lou salomon said:
same thoughts here, thibaut. especially due to its yellow legs/feet. but what age should it be then? a 3rd cycle YLG hardly has such a large p9 mirror, smudging goes far down on neck/breast and 34d gen. secondaries do have some dark centers. i'd also expect some more black on p4 in a 3rd winter YLG. would be extremely retarded if a 4th cycle! odd bird anyhow.
Click to expand...

I have had exactly the same problem, Lou. This is why I carefully (or cowardly?) typed «*sub-adult*» rather than a specific age as it is not at all straightforward to age this bird.
However I believe there is very little chance we are dealing with a 3rd cycle, pretty much for the primary pattern you described. I would also add this P10 pattern is hardly, if ever, seen in 3rd cycle YLG.
So my vote goes to a retarded 4th cycle with much smudging/marking on the head/neck/secondaries and with a retarded bill as well.

Funnily enough, I was gulling in Charny today (more about that soon to come on WP gulls forum ;) when I saw this thread and the bird we are discussing...thus I decided to look for a YLG that’d look similar, and failed despite thousands of birds present!
 
I aged it 4cy for all the traits you two mentioned. A 3cy bird would hardly show such large and well defined mirrors on both p9 and p10. In addition, look a the large and well defined white apicals on p7-p10 and very reduced black on tail. So, being a 4cy (imo), it should be a herring, because I don't think a 4cy ylg with such dense and heavy head streakings, which also reach down to the breast, would ever exist
 
Pattern of P10 (especially the basal part) is not so good for a 4th cycle HG, Alex. And quite typical for YLG on the other hand. The band on P5 is also thicker than on most HG of this age, but that’s only a tendency. I am not too used to judging the size of the apical spots in flight myself but I am not certain they are that big.
Granted this is not a typical YLG but it would be a very weird HG with those legs, mantle shade, combination of bright yellow bill base with solid and thick black tip (common in YLG in my experience)...even the head and neck pattern actually looks better for YLG in my view, it’s hard to explain why and I’ll have to look at pics of both sp to put some words on what is just an impression for now...although the fact that the spots/streaks look very contrasty might be a start.
 
I disagree. A 4th cycle hg can easily show a full black band on p5 and that pattern on p10.
Let's say that this bird is a 3cy. Can you find a 3cy ylg with a combination of: two large mirrors (p10 and p9) + dens and heavy head and neck streakings reaching down to breast (this last trait is the most important).

If we consider this a 4cy instead, please find a ylg with such streakings.
 
I don’t think it’s a 3cy/cycle so we might as well skip this part, and yes this amount of streaking is very unusual for a YLG in its 4th cycle. But this should not obliterate the fact that the primary pattern of this bird is very typical for YLG and would be extremely unusual for a HG in my opinion. We don’t have that much material to compare this bird with in the YLG section of gull-research.org; however the same can’t be said for the HG section where we have tons of materials thanks to the dedication of Mars Muusse. And this primary pattern would stand out as a sore thumb in the sub-adult HG gallery.
Consider:
- the P10 tongue is very short and not really oblique (possible for HG but not common)
- P9 combines a fairly solid mirror and a lot of black (reaching as far as 2/3 up the exposed part of the feather), a very unlikely combination for HG
- convex grey tongue tip pattern on P9/P8/P7 leaving obvious black bayonets on each side of the tongue. Again not that rare in HG but way more typical of YLG
- not only complete but THICK black band on P5 including on the inner web and even a tiny black spot on P4, again and again much more typical of YLG (but occurring in HG too, including the odd adult, although the P5 band is usually thinner on the inner web compared to the Italian bird)

Adding, once more, the legs colour and the mantle shade, and not to mention the fact that the bird was photographed in the core range of michahellis where HG is presumably quite rare...I still see the YLG option as the most likely.
 
How would you age and id this, and why? A few days ago in north east italy
 

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Thibaut, it's not at all cowardly to put this the gull down as a subadult. It's not easy, if not impossible, to age certain indivi
duls which I'm certain everyone here knows I would be interested to pin it down to species and if you ask me, Im not that comfortable as to which species it actually is, however, as been mentioned here, I could be somehow comfortabe with YLG :) Back to nr 4 & 5, which imo are YLG's.

JanJ
 
balex78 said:
I aged it 4cy for all the traits you two mentioned. A 3cy bird would hardly show such large and well defined mirrors on both p9 and p10. In addition, look a the large and well defined white apicals on p7-p10 and very reduced black on tail. So, being a 4cy (imo), it should be a herring, because I don't think a 4cy ylg with such dense and heavy head streakings, which also reach down to the breast, would ever exist
Click to expand...

I've seen individuals (yes, plural) as streaked as this in the Canaries actually, but I know, it is a different subspecies.
 
just to analyze a bit that weird subadult bird:
- bill is very bright yellow and with all black tip but weak in structure (quite contradicting in itself). yellow better for YLG, all black tip possible in different taxons depending on age... and structure also not excluding anything.
- then that head jizz: doesn't resemble either a HG or a YLG: eye not really smudgy but streaking much finer than in most HG.
- blotchy breast markings very unusal for YLG, better for HG, but we had some weird 3rd cycle YLG showing this 2-3 years ago, remember, alex?
- mirrors: 3c (3rd cycle) YLG rarely shows p9 mirrors and hardly this large, but both p10 and p9 mirrors very rounded like in most (younger adult) michahellis. so i wouldn't exclude a mich on mirrors alone.
- p10 ventral tongue - slightly rounded end but rel. long for a 3c mich, still possible, maybe better for 4c HG
- apicals: not too large for a 3c mich and not too small for a 4c argentatus
- p5 subterminal band plus small dot on p4 points away from michahellis: usually at this age p5 mark is more extended/bolder and p4 usually shows a larger mark
- brown hue in GC - doesn't tell us much, would be possible in both 3c micha and 4cy tatus
- darkish centers to scondaries: now this is strange for both, a 3c HG rather being likely to show them, hardly a YLG or a 4c HG (but maybe more likely the latter)
- i see yellowish feet. this is at odds with a subadult HG in autumn.
so, this possibly could be a hybrid between these two taxons or maybe a 4c (baltic?) HG, unlikely a pure YLG
 
Very good and thorough analisys Lou. The major issue here it's the age.

Is there the possibility that this could be an advanced 3cy, especially in primary moult (primaries being so adult like in apical spots, with two large mirrors and reduced black on p4)?

This being a 3cy would also explain:

1) the brownish marks on coverts
2)the blackish immaturity signs on secondaries
3)the heavy streakings reaching down to breast , or at least it would partially explain it. I'd say partially because a YLG in autumn, even in its 3cy, rarely shows this dense and heavy head+ breast markings, but surely is far more likely in a 3cy that it is on a 4cy, isn't it?


If we add the yellowish feet, bill pattern (more possible in a YLG, especially in a 3cy bird with so much black on it) and the almost completely white tail (well possible in a 3cy YLG) ,

we can assume that this bird could well be an ODD 3CY YLG

Can we find some pictures of a 3cy YLG in autumn with such large mirrors, which is the most disturbing feature here along with streakings?

Cheers
Alex
 
hi alex, i have to search through some pics but i have seen subadult YLG with p9 mirrors which were not much smaller, thing is it is hard to exclude 4c with immaturity signs like dark centered primary coverts. perhaps this bird stems from the lausitz melting pot :eek!::-O3:)
 
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