Contributor
Date
Location
- Age
- Not specified
- Sex
- Not specified
Observation details
During our morning visit, I spotted what was presumably a continuing adult on the beach with the other gulls, initially north of the old breakwaters, but later just off the mouth of the harbor. The light was good, and this bird was relatively close during our morning visit, so our views were quite good. When we returned late in the day, we saw what was either this same bird or another adult Lesser Black-backed Gull standing with other gulls well north along the beach. Although bird’s size, shape, and general patterns seemed similar, at least to the degree that I could make them out from about 400 meters, this bird appeared a little different from the bird we had seen earlier in the day. This was a relatively large gull that appeared slightly smaller than the many Herring Gulls that were present, but it was obviously larger than the California Gulls. I thought the bill was slimmer than that of a Western Gull, and that it had a weaker angle at the gonys, but I did not carefully compare its shape to those of the other birds. The forehead was sloping, and the head was rounded, but I did not notice if this bird’s head was angular at the forecrown or more smoothly rounded. The head was unremarkable in size for a large gull, the neck was short and relatively inconspicuous, and the body was plump, full-chested, and with a more horizontal posture than is typical of some gulls. The legs were of medium-length and unremarkable in mass for a large gull, and the feet were fully webbed. This bird’s plumage patterns were typical of an adult, dark-backed gull in basic plumage, but with a few key characters that easily separated it from a Western Gull. The head, neck, and underparts were basically white. I did not think the forehead was streaked, but the crown, nape, face, and back and sides of the neck were finely streaked with sooty to blackish. I further noted the lack of a darkening or denser streaking around the eye on this bird, which was a little odd for this species, and I did not note much in the way of darker splotches at the sides of the neck and breast. Moreover, as far as I could determine, the center of the breast, and the belly, flanks, and undertail coverts were unmarked. Contrasting sharply with the white of the head, neck, and underparts, the back, scapulars, wing coverts, and visible secondaries and tertials were uniformly slate-gray with only a few exceptions. I did note relatively small, hemispherical markings of white at the tips of the distal scapulars, and a somewhat more conspicuous band of white across the tertials that separated the gray that characterized the main part of the wings from the black primaries to produce an obvious tertial-crescent. Moreover, the primary tips exposed beyond the tertials were jet-black with a white spot of moderate size at the tip of each feather that produced a row of spots along the wingtip. This bird’s bill was deep yellow with an oval spot of bright red near the tip of the lower mandible. The eyes were whitish to cream-colored, and thus contrasting with both the black pupils and a narrow, dark orbital-ring that may have shown just a hint of red. The legs and webbed feet were a relatively bright, yellow in color. When we returned to this site late in the day, we again saw this species, but at a much greater distance, and in less than ideal light. Most of what I saw on this bird appeared like that described above, including the yellow bill with a red spot near the tip, pale eyes, yellow legs and feet, and the white-tipped, black primaries as seen in the closed wing. The only potential differences that I noted were that the head streaking had a blurry appearance, and the sides of the neck and breast may have been more heavily marked than I had remembered from the morning. Unfortunately, I never could be certain if these differences reflected different birds, or instead, the same bird under different and less than ideal conditions.
Technical information
- Model
- COOLPIX P900
- ISO
- 125
- Focal length
- 321 mm
- Flash
- Flash did not fire, auto
- f-stop
- f/6.3
- Shutter speed
- 1/500 sec
- Dimensions
- 2028 pixels x 1521 pixels
- Original file size
- 661.7 KB