Very pale Gull?!??? NW Italy (1 Viewer)

[balex78]

Hello,

what do you think about this gull? It was overall very pale, including tertials and primaries with neat and pale primaries tips and short wing projection

https://www.flickr.com/photos/48743015@N03/16762988245/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/48743015@N03/16555718407/in/photostream/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/48743015@N03/16576846149/in/photostream/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/48743015@N03/16575414178/in/photostream/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/48743015@N03/16143048603/in/photostream/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/48743015@N03/16140681434/in/photostream/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/48743015@N03/16737109916/in/photostream/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/48743015@N03/16575414268/in/photostream/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/48743015@N03/16555719147/in/photostream/


Thanks a lot
Alex

 

[Nutcracker]

The primary projection looks quite long to me, best seen in the only fully profile shot (#4 in the list above). On these pics, I can't see anything wrong with it being a darkish Iceland Gull (i.e., toward Kumlien's subsp.); the head shape and small bill are also OK for that.

 

[Giroud Marc]

IMO, it's a leucistic 2CY YLG/HG

 

[balex78]

Hello,

The primary projection is fairly short and background colour is beige with distint and neat White apex.

I don't think it's a leucisitic hg or ylg.

I'm not convinced about the Iceland gull too. Iceland gull is whiter and primaries are almost White!

i was thinking about a hybrid, maybe glaucous x herring?

Besides, i found these gulls on the internet which look a lot like my gull. They are Slaty-backed gulls, very very similar to mine:

http://www.birdskoreablog.org/?p=14512
http://www.martinreid.com/Gull website/gullsp77.html
http://orientalbirdimages.org/birdi...pecies&Bird_ID=944&Bird_Family_ID=&pagesize=1
http://fog.ccsf.cc.ca.us/~jmorlan/sbgull.jpg

 

[Nutcracker]

Definitely not Glaucous x Herring, that has (inherited from Glauc) a much larger, heavier bill with a pink base; see e.g. here (pics 3-6), here, or here. I'd agree that an Iceland x Herring hybrid is possible though.

 

[lou salomon]

alex, i think your gull is a pale herring gull.
structurally it is the best contender of all your lately depicted presumed herring gulls. and gc pattern is spot on. tertials also seem to have retained a bit of its large pale crescent. such pale HG are rel. frequent but not common. i have not seen such a striking 1st cycle yet (but i haven't seen very many HG either).
the fact that it has replaced most if not all scaps is a good proof of not being a boreal breeder like kumlien's or thayer's (coverts pattern being off for both too).
the hanging belly is good for HG. pale tipped primaries are too.
wings are not short as you say but longish (https://www.flickr.com/photos/48743015@N03/16575414178/in/photostream/) as nutcracker mentioned. but of course it's not an iceland gull.
as for the slaty-backed proposal:
http://www.birdpop.org/DownloadDocu...es-2014-SlatyBacked-Gull-plumages-Birding.pdf
slaty-back is a dearkish monster with shortish wings and pale inner webs going high up in primaries. surely not like your bird.

 

[balex78]

Hello Lou, thanks. I think it's too pale for a pale herring gull The primaries are way too pale so it is the overall aspect. Couldn't it be a leucistic herring gull?

 

[balex78]

Hello Lou. In the north american gulls group on Facebook, Steve Hampton and Floyd Hayes says that They see a lot of thayer's and kumliens which look like this and the scaps are indeed molting by March! They say Kumlien's also can show primaries not totally white, like my individual

 

[Mark Lew1s]

To me your bird looks a lot like this one - a pale HG photographed last year in NE Scotland.

 

[Nutcracker]

To me your bird looks a lot like this one - a pale HG photographed last year in NE Scotland.

Yours has a larger bill than Balex's; I suspect this one may have some Glaucous genes in its ancestry.

 

[Mark Lew1s]

I'm not seeing the bill to be any larger to be honest. Structurally my bird was nailed on for herring gull. Obviously it's not possible to rule out glauc ancestry somewhere down the line, but I'm not seeing anything particularly compelling to suggest there is any.