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Help with gull identification (1 Viewer)

Definitely not a Yellow-legged Gull. Note its paralel-sided bill and dark eye. I would call it a Caspian Gull, but I don't have that much experience with large white-headed gulls. And JANJ, who commented on your pic is BF's resident gull expert, so he's the man to listen to when it comes to gull identification.
 
There's a classic Caspian Gull jizz to your bird AJDH and it's from the eastern race barabensis. The strongly yellow legs and quite bright yellow bill are good features for separating this form from nominate cachinnans. Barabensis have a slightly darker mantle colour than cachinnans and can indeed look quite like Yellow-legged Gull at a glance. Yellow-legged would be a major rarity in Saudi, I imagine, while barabensis are regular in winter out there. A Yellow-legged would, among other things, show a chunkier bill and paler eye with red orbital ring.

Rgds

Greg
 
Greg - can I just take advantage of your knowledge for a second, I've been trying to work out why some Caspians are known as L ponticus, where as others are known as L cachinnans?? I understand these two are now joined to both form Caspian Gull, but why were they originally given separate names?

Btw - cheers for the explanation re L barbensis, something I had rarely come acorss before.

Cheers
 
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Hi Dwayne,

Good question: I don't know. I've always assumed that ponticus was a nomenclature relic going back to the days when Caspian Gull wasn't recognised as a full species. The Dutch still call it Pontic Gull, I believe.

So I checked up in the Gulls bible (Olsson & Larsson) and is says: "Supposed race "ponticus" (N Black Sea) the palest end of the cline with most white on wing-tip in adult. Compared to Caspian Sea and birds wintering in Arabia, adult generally has slightly paler upperparts. Has full white tip to P10, long white tongue from base of P10 along inner webs towards tip, and generally longer bill."

From this it would appear that ponticus is a form - and perhaps a race - of nominate cachinnans, though I imagine that separating them with certainty in the field would be quite a challenge!

Rgds

Greg
 
Dan
'ponticus' is the name given to birds at the extreme end of a cline, being the palest form with most white on the wing tips of adult birds. They exist around the northern Black Sea area.
Hope that's of some help - nicked from Gulls book :cool:

Looks like I was beaten to it!

Menzie
 
Thanks for all the inputs..........................excuse me while I pop over to the gallery to do some editing. :)
 
What a very nice image of a Caspian Gull, which I think it is, but is that so?Caspian Gull (cachinnans) or Steppe Gull (barabensis) As Greg mention, barabensis has darker upperparts, and bright yellow legs and bill, and moults later comp. to cachinnans and would therefore be fresher in spring when cachinnans would be slightly more worn, which this one seems to be. It has a dark subterminal mark on p10, a character associated with eastern cachinnans, and a small dark eye (usually paler in barabensis, but sometimes with dark flecking which makes the eye look dark at a distance), with a red orbital ring. It should be noted that the identification of eastern cachinnans, barabensis is not fully understood, and some are very similar! According to Yésou, barabensis is probably best considered a subspecies of Siberian Gull (heuglini). Also according to Yésou, eastern cachinnans has a paler mantle than western ponticus, the opposite according to Gulls. It will however be seen if ponticus is to be recognized as a valid subspecies, which it wasn´t in the begining.
Structurally, it looks like Caspian, but due to variation- one can perhaps not exclude barabenis.
Look at this Caspian (?) in Italy in Feb. very bright yellow legs and bill to be in winter.

http://www.surfbirds.com/blog/uploads/birdingitalynet_herringcaspian1.jpg

Also these again:

http://www.elisanet.fi/antero.lindholm/public_html/lokki/kurgaldzino.htm

And this Caspian: notice that it´s taken in Jan.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/53941010@N00/93886658/

barabensis:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/53941010@N00/80064880/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/53941010@N00/76850473/

http://www.harrisbirds.com/Goan Adult Index.htm

http://www.magikbirds.com/image.asp?title_id=616&show_thumbnails=False

Caspian:

http://www.magikbirds.com/image.asp?title_id=617&show_thumbnails=False

JanJ
 
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dwayne950 said:
Cheers for that Greg, I was at first wondering if it was just an old name that had now been abandoned, but got given this link that suggested otherwise: http://www.geocities.com/rainforest/canopy/6181/taxonomy.htm

As you say, would probably be nigh on impossible to pick up on in the field, I find it hard enough just to pick up a Caspian!!!

Thanks
Click to expand...

hi dan and all,
ponticus is quite distinctive in my eyes and actually the vast majority of birds seen in western europe are of this black sea race (->"pontus euxinus" = black sea in latin).
seeing this bird, again i wonder about how to differenciate eastern cachi from barabensis. well, barabensis is supposed to be smaller, rounder headed, shorter billed, with brighter yellow bare parts etc but since there's so much variation and overlap in structure, colour and measurements, i find it hard to come to a conclusive id in these. i'm really keen on actually seeing one ...

cheers,
 
Right there Lou, it´s a drag, some, many, can´t (with the present knowledge, or maybe ever, be identified). Showing characters of..... is what we have to settle with here I guess, even if there´s cachinnans feel to this one. As mentioned in Gulls, some (N. Kazakhstan) have wing tip of barabensis, and characters of cachinnans. Notice how to different sources mention upperpart tone of western, contra eastern cachinnans, darker according to Gulls, paler according to Yésou. As barabensis is darker (darkest to the north of it´s range) than western cachinnans and has a different primary pattern, to mention a few characters, one usually has a better chance to separate the two. On the other hand, how much do we accually know about these taxa? Well some, but def. to little to be able to say anything for certain, and more study is required, and is going on. BTW, are these eastern cachinnans, or are they barabensis?

http://www.elisanet.fi/antero.lindholm/public_html/lokki/kurgaldzino.htm

I think Adrian is posting some more images of the subject bird later.

JanJ
 
I was initially thrown when on a visit to Eilat last spring I observed a couple of adult gulls very similar to AJDH's birds in among the hordes of Caspian, Heuglin's Gulls, Baltic Gulls and Pallas's Gulls. The dark mantle colour (almost but not quite as dark as Heuglin's) and the strong, bright yellow legs and relatively strong, brightly marked bill made my instant reaction Yellow-legged, though subsequent observation revealed of course that they weren't Yellow-legged at all.

The head profile - and indeed the overall jizz of the birds - was very Caspian-like, with a steep forehead but a more rounded crown. My inkling was that these might be barabensis and one of Sweden's leading gull experts, who saw the pictures, thought that's what they were.

So is AJDH's bird an eastern cachinnans or barabensis ? I think existing knowledge is so limited and the overlap so extensive between the two forms that it's probably impossible to say anything for sure. The books state that many can't be identified for certain.

I agree with Jan that the jizz is cachinnans-like, but then barabensis IS cachinnans-like in jizz. To my eye, AJDH's bird does have a number of pro-barabensis features: deep yellow and shortish legs; dark eye (eastern cach sometimes has a paler eye - like the birds in the last url Jan posted - though there's plenty of overlap I imagine); bright yellow and strongly marked bill with a pale tip (a good indicator for barabensis according to "Gulls").

Maybe eastern cachinnans/barabensis is as far as we can get on this one? Excellent debate, though!

Rgds

Greg
 
Agree, standing in front of hordes of cachinnans, barabensis and heuglini, like in Israel or Bahrain, or anywhere else where they occur in winter, is a thrill and a headache- if you like. As Greg say´s barabensis is cachinnans- like, but it´s somehow funny to see, when you watch barabensis together with cachinnans (if you know which is which), the stance of many barabensis with wings hanging down, making the flat back almost like a perfect straight line, from hindneck to primary tips, which I almost never se in a similar fashion in cachinnans. Looking to the bill there´s not an especially pronounced gonys angle, which many barabensis has, also seen in many male cachinnans. The problem would perhaps be greater between female cachinnans and male barabensis.

http://www23.tok2.com/home/jgull/OmanGulls/index.html

Of course it´s not my intention to put forward some kind of ID feature with stance and all, but together with other mentioned characters I´ve been able to spot many barabensis, but been wrong at times as well of course!
The pale tip on the bill of the subject gull is a drop of water.
I think though, that the Italian Caspian Gull (http://www.surfbirds.com/blog/uploads/birdingitalynet_herringcaspian1.jpg) is interesting. because of the brightness of the bare parts- in Feb.

Interesting to see some more images of Adrians gull-later.

JanJ
 
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Here's another view of the same bird. I thought I had more but unfortunately I don't.
 

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in the head close up the bill looks shorter, maybe favouring barabensis. concerning yellow feet: in dobrogea, se romania, i've seen adult birds in may with fleshy legs (ca. 10-20 %), dull yellowish (ca. 70 %) and about 10% with bright yellow legs with all kinds of transitions. 12% have bright yellow legs according to "gulls" in ukraine breeding birds, so this matches my obs; we are talking about ponticus. i don't know how it is in eastern cach.
interesting is also the red gonys spot bleeding into the upper mandible. is that more pro barabensis or more pro cachi?
edit: with the last pic, legs are really short for a cachinnans. could this be a male barabensis then? on the other hand i have found only one barabensis with a hanging lower belly like in the last pic (which is a caspian feature):
http://www.magikbirds.com/pictures/616-IMG_4100A.jpg
cheerio,
 
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Lou all,
According to 'Gulls' the gonys-spot rarely reaches the upper mandible on cachinnans, but often do on barabensis. It´s of course the hanging belly that puts you on to cachinnans, right or wrong, but such a "boat shaped" underparts I´m not sure I´ve seen in barabensis, but it might also be a hazardous conclusion to put it forward as a typical character for cachinnans only, since other taxa shows this at times, depending on stance. I´ve seen cachinnans with short looking legs, just to see it change position, and turn in to a long legged individual. According to measurements cachinnans has longer tarsus, longest in eastern part of range, but there´s overlap.

Better maybe for Adrian to put this one out as Caspian/'Steppe Gull' (cachinnans/barabensis)


Check some barabensis:


http://www.geocities.com/birdsnap/barabensis_win2.htm

http://www.geocities.com/birdsnap/barabensis_subadult.htm

http://www.geocities.com/birdsnap/barabensis_adult.htm

http://www.geocities.com/birdsnap/barabamax.htm

JanJ
 
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