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

Larud Id pls (1 Viewer)

i think it is not possible to ID it with certainty. but it looks better for a retarded and strongly bleached 2cy caspian gull than for a same aged michahellis although that scapular pattern is not common in caspian. usual there are more longitudinal structures in cachinnans scap pattern, centers of this bird bear a worrying strong transversal bar. thin subterminal band is normal and good for cach. greater coverts seem to have been well patterned, this waving appears in quite some bleached 2cy spring caspians.
it is retarded because usually at this time most YLG and caspians have a variable amount of 2nd generation coverts.
 
Sorry about wrong location , this photo taken in Istanbul Turkey. I always sent photos from Samsun :) But both species are can be show both places, I think it isnt change the result.
 
istambul as location changes the weights a bit and makes it more probable that we see a strange eastern michahellis with a lot of cachinnans traits, as they are found there. i was not happy with that head for cachi and iris seems to get paler already. scap pattern better for micha if for any of the two sp.
body shape looks better for michahellis!
you can't go on bill shape, valery, since it's overgrown - slightly deformed and miscoloured (a common sight in immature large gulls).
now i'd put my money on yellow-legged gull, a weird and retarded individual.
 
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FWIW michahellis here in Iberia often show even whiter heads at that age than the bird in the photos - it looks to me that it does have a deformed and slightly elongated bill too.
 
. . .bill shape. . .overgrown - slightly deformed and miscoloured (a common sight in immature large gulls)

Interesting. Hope I'm not going too much OT here, but what is the long-term fate of such individuals, do you know? Does the bill revert to "normal" in subsequent plumages? What are the effects on survival?
 
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as an example - a 2cy mich from april, bucharest, photo by cristian mihai -
http://www.lou.bertalan.de/gulls/pic/vh/up_1157.jpg
that bird also has a slightly overgrown and miscoloured bill. many such birds seem to develope a normal bill later on. a deformation together with late moult of course can be a sign of weak health state / some metabolistic problems and probably mortality in such birds is higher than in normal ones. - this bird from amsterdam seems to not have survived its 2nd winter: http://www.gull-research.org/lbbg1cy/c95aug.htm
note the developement of bill growth with subsequent breakings of the overgrown bill tip!

and for tsingy: yes, there is a lot of variation in head pattern, actually in all months but some have an almost clean head by march like this: http://www.lou.bertalan.de/gulls/m_phi.php?bid=1026&grp=michahellis 2cy january-june
 
as an example - a 2cy mich from april, bucharest, photo by cristian mihai -
http://www.lou.bertalan.de/gulls/pic/vh/up_1157.jpg
that bird also has a slightly overgrown and miscoloured bill. many such birds seem to develope a normal bill later on. a deformation together with late moult of course can be a sign of weak health state / some metabolistic problems and probably mortality in such birds is higher than in normal ones. - this bird from amsterdam seems to not have survived its 2nd winter: http://www.gull-research.org/lbbg1cy/c95aug.htm
note the developement of bill growth with subsequent breakings of the overgrown bill tip!

Thanks for the information & the link--very interesting. I've encountered the occasional young gull with an extremely deformed bill from time to time in Reno, but I'd no idea that slight deformations were so common & I'll keep my eyes peeled for them in the future.

Here's a California Gull with a very badly deformed bill that I photographed at a local park a couple of years ago: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fugl/5061811674/in/set-72157602214643626
 
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