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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Odd small gull (1 Viewer)

Gives me an immature Common/Mew Gull impression - small size and small bill but still more of a Larus 'jizz' than the smaller hooded gulls like Bonaparte's, Black-headed etc. Not sure how (un)likely that is in Nebraska though...
 
Rather unlikely. Isn’t mew about the size of a ring billed, or a few cm shorter? This was clearly small. The only small gull reported so far in the area is Franklin’s.
 
Definitely not one of the smaller "hooded" gulls, as stevethehydra pointed out. I can't say whether it's just an immature Ring-billed Gull or a Mew Gull, given Mew's rarity in Nebraska.

Size is rather hard to tell from this angle, but it does appear a bit smaller than surrounding Ring-billed.
 
With such a delicate and short bill and apparently dark eye the species that would fit it best is really Mew Gull, despite its rarity there.
 
OK. It probably won’t pass with just that. I’d need someone to refind it and get photos with wings.
 
You'd certainly struggle to sell it as Ring-billed over here on that image. (The ones in the background would pass muster though...:t: .)
 
One NE expert has labeled it ring bill now. There are some 10 records of mew gull. It comes from the west, so we have records in Lake McConaughy which is a 300 miles West of here.
 
Difficult images but there is every chance it’s just a (small) Ring-billed gull, based on the fact that it’s a 1st cycle bird (cf. bill pattern) and the general whiteness of the plumage. A 2cy Mew gull would generally be much darker at this time of the year and would lack the contrasting whitish eye crescents.
 
It's a first-cycle, 3-year gull that has a black-tipped, pinkish bill. Because it has an obvious pale gray mantle and lacks much in the way of brown tones, it's an immature Ring-billed Gull.
 
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