BirdForum is the net's largest birding community dedicated to wild birds and birding, and is absolutely FREE!

Register for an account to take part in lively discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="lou salomon" data-source="post: 1665003" data-attributes="member: 16268">hi againneil, thanks for posting the 2 additional shots of that weird but beautiful bird. in the last pic which shows its right side it looks even more bizarre and pattern seems to be a bit more delicate black and white. i think most of these closely related sp. of the argentatus group can adopt such a contrasting pattern with fresh 2nd  generation coverts, i've seen it in argentatus, michahellis and cachinnans, not yet from graellsii which does not mean anything since it's the taxon i'm least experienced with. of course it's not a GBBG...with that bill one really might get tempted to call it a darkish caspian or a hybrid (HG x casp) or you are right indeed and it is an unusual pattern in a may graellsii. let's ask the graellsii experts from holland here: <a href="http://www.talk.gull-research.org/viewforum.php?f=4" target="_blank">http://www.talk.gull-research.org/viewforum.php?f=4</a>cheers</blockquote>