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Message: <blockquote data-quote="lou salomon" data-source="post: 1374279" data-attributes="member: 16268">dark 1st winter cachinnans in stuttgarttoday i went back to the petrol port at 11:00 and made some terrible photos under worst conditions (2 crying kids around my knees, dark like in a sun eclipse, a talking ancient (very old) birder woman beside me who scared my little daughter...she had heard about my sighting of 2 caspians yesterday. not the 2 ind. from yesterday showed up but another one which for the first 5 minutes made me scratch my head. a pretty dark and well marked 1st winter prob. male caspian with unmistikable gr. covert pattern (pics 1, 3, 4) and a longish bill (-> pic 5). seeing only its tail pattern one would call it a herring gull! - primary window is weaker than in typical herring (only inner webs are pale)- it has a marked shawl (streaking on hindneck) and relatively pale head (not as pale=white as the typical birds yesterday!).- undertail with strong stripes at the tail side (-> pic 7)- bill with paler base on upper mandible (usually on lower)- additional tail bands on tail sides (dorsal) as in many caspianssince even wing projection is short i wondered about one of those polish hybrids with argentatus or like those caspians showing up in finnland, latvia etc. with features of argentatus.some cropped pics:</blockquote>