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Herring or LBBG? Finland (1 Viewer)

mäkpe

mäkpe

Well-known member
I was gullwatching yesterday and saw this 1st winter bird briefly flying over after W-t Sea-eagle have flushed the flock. In the field i thought it was probably a LBBG, which is rare in Finland in winter, but now i'm leading towards HG.
I didn't get anything about the upperparts, so pics are all there is and everything in the pics seems to match with my brief field-observations.

Any comments appreciated!
 

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hi petteri,

that's quite a classic baltic gull! take alone the very slim and pointed wings. and then pale underparts plus uniformly dark underwing coverts (but sometimes pale in nominate fuscus).
i guess the paler looking inner primaries are due to translucency, while actually the paler parts of them (small portions of inner webs) would be minimal if looked from above. double tail band is a thing that does occure in most large gulls from time to time, but wideness of the usual single one is very variable in baltic also (as i guess you know from your local patch ;))

all the best,
 
A basic point but in the third shot the first-winter bird looks larger than the Herring Gull it is flying above.

Steve
 
Hi all,
I am also getting a GBBG vibe from this bird, based mainly on the tail pattern, the whitish underparts (for what seems to be a 1st-w large gull), and the fact that it seems to be of a similar size to what must be an adult GBBG in the first image (undersides to the remiges are too dark for Herring, white tip to P10 etc rules out a lingering LBBG). I know that some '1st-w' argentatus can have a tail pattern similar to GBBG of this age, but surely no age of Lesser Black-backed Gull (of any taxon) ever would.
Regards,
Harry
 
That´s what you get for not looking close enough. That body + other features such as tail band and underwing coverts fits a GBBG better.

JanJ
 
Many thanks for all! Nice to see i'm not the only one having troubles with this bird :) For some reason i didn't even considered GBBG - i'm used to paler ones.

Anyway, many Finnish people thinks this might still be Herring Gull, for what reasons is a bit unclear for me :)
 
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