ML25379911

Age

Not specified

Sex

Not specified

Observation details

From 1135-1200 Alan Barron, Daryl Coldren and I observed not just a 3rd cycle bird but also an adult (!) that Alan found about 20 minutes before Daryl and I arrived. The location of these birds were just to the south of Moseley road, on Lower Lake Road. ADDENDUM: Added my poor distantly digiscoped photos of the bird below and my description of my CBRC docmentation (accepted record 2007-104). Description: The adult was a typical large 4-year gull, being similar slightly smaller than maybe a Western Gull. Overall the bird had very dark slaty-colored wings (not primaries) and mantle and had a whitish head and underparts. Structurally the bird looked somewhat small-headed and had the characteristic “pot-bellied” appearance, due to the front heavy balance of the bird. Due to the grass I couldn’t really tell how short or long the legs were. The birds head was small and rounded with a somewhat small-looking all yellow bill that had no noticeable gonydeal angle from the distance we observed the bird. While viewing at some angles the bird appeared to have some slight cinnamon-looking streaking to the head and the dark mascara type coloration around the eyes but due to distance these features weren’t always apparent. The mantle and scapulars, and coverts were all a uniform dark slaty-blue color. The bird had distinct scapular crescents, very broad tertial crescents, very large apical spots on the visible primaries, and a couple of times I got views of the string of the crescent-shaped mark to one of the upper apical spots on the folded wing. The legs were a dark rich-red color, which were readily apparent in flight. The eye was a light straw color but was the distance made it tough to always see that feature distinctly. As I noted in the observation section, the bird in flight had very distinct string of pearls in the primaries, along with a very broad trailing edge to the wings. Also, the bird overall had very broad wings.

Technical information

Model

Canon PowerShot A610

Focal length

29.2 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire, auto, red-eye reduction

f-stop

f/4.1

Shutter speed

1/1250 sec

Dimensions

2048 pixels x 1536 pixels

Original file size

1005.11 KB