Contributor
Date
Location
- Age and sex
- Adult, Unknown sex - X
Media notes
I believe Thayer's 3: the second adult. Bird is on the upper right and marked with a red dot with the Glaucous Gull below. Pale underside to the primaries with dark only along the edge of the primaries, not extending inwards/proximally towards the primary coverts as in the Herring Gulls in the photo. The dark coloration is also muted and slaty-black not a darker jet black. The dark eye can also be seen. No dark where the tail band used to be so an adult. This is the first photo in my series sequence after photo 4371 above. Thayer's 3 was to the right of Thayer's 2 and is leading the birds as they flushed at @ 1718 hrs so I think this is Thayer's 3.
Observation details
FHC, submitted 02.19.19 These are really normal counts here in late January/early February. I expect most of these birds will be gone as soon as/if it warms up in early March. Two adults and one immature- a 2nd cycle. The immature had some gray in the scapulars at the top of the back and primaries with pale fringes that did not run to the outer webs of the primaries. The primary panel as a whole being light brown, not dark like a Herring Gull, but darker than the mantle and also the tertials- the feathers just above the primaries. Small rounded head and with a bill blunter and smaller than the 2nd cycle Herring it was near. The bill also was diffusely dark near the tip with dark running back along the cutting edge of the bill, not the Glaucous-like clean cut black at the end of the bill with a pink-base that the 2nd cycle Herring near it showed, and which others can show. It is said that some 2nd cycle ICGUs can show a Glaucous-like bill, but I have never seen one yet. A small Glaucous with longer wings can be confusing. Immediately prior to this observation a 2nd cycle Kumlien's was seen in flight at the Elkhart Landfill, but I do not believe this is that bird. The primaries on that bird were white enough for it to be confused as a Glaucous Gull, on two separate occasions by multiple persons, and the primaries of that Kumlien's were later seen to be whitish from the same @ distance as the bird in this observation. Thayer's usually have primaries darker than the body, being closer in lineage to the Herring Gull, and Kumlien's show primaries not any darker than the body, especially from a distance, being closer in lineage to the Iceland Gull glaucoides.
Technical information
- Model
- COOLPIX P600
- Dimensions
- 2348 pixels x 1102 pixels
- Original file size
- 3.12 MB