Sorry, was treating heuglini as a Lesser Black-backed type (your question specified Herring types)! That's not on the British list either, and, given the extent of variation within graellsii, I think it would take a ringing recovery at this stage to get the taxon accepted.
Thanks, Harry. I guess I was treating 'herring' in a rather liberal way. Back in the dark ages, when I started birding, herring/lesser bb were given as an example of a 'ring species' that gradually changed as it went around the world until the two 'ends' were different species. I'm not sure that the concept of a ring species has survived all the various taxonomic debates!
At least I know not to spend too much time looking out for
heuglini round Surrey!
I've now had the chance to read the
Ibis paper. Their taxonomic recommendations (=decisions?) are quite different from those of Olsen and Larsson. E.g.
vegae becomes a sub-species of American Herring Gull (
Larus smithsonianus) and
barbarensis becomes a sub-species of Lesser bb gull (
L fuscus). I wonder where it will all end? In the meantime, it seems as if you have to identify most of the large gulls to sub-species level to be sure of keeping track of which species you have seen at any given time!
Ken
