ML413622221

Age

Not specified

Sex

Not specified

Observation details

Possible Vega Gull. Feedback from gull experts has been mostly positive, but the statement I've received almost universally has been that ID of these birds in the lower 48, due to hybrids and aberrant American Herring and Thayer's Gulls, is more or less impossible. Below is my original description of the bird. Continuing great find by Andrew Birch yesterday. The bird was seen loafing with the large gull flock just west of Atlantic. My description will mostly be a recap of what Andy has already stated in his list, so I encourage people to give his write-up a look as well. I initially spotted a Herring-type gull that seemed overall quite pale in comparison to the many other American Herrings present. The bird was separated from adjacent Thayer's Gulls by extensive checkering on greater coverts, dark Herring-esqu scapulars, dark tertials, and very dark primaries. In flight, the extensively white tail and rump could be seen, with scarce brown scalloping against a mostly white base. It stood out against the rest of the upperside as being obviously paler. These tail feathers also had dark chocolatey-brown tips, giving the tail a banded appearance. As Andy mentioned, some American Herrings can show this feature to a lesser extent, but this bird appears to be far beyond the normal distribution of what one of these birds could show. Moving on to the upperwing the most striking feature visible in flight was the intricately checkered greater coverts, consisting of a grayish white base with medium brown scalloping in several places along the length of the feathers. In the American ssp., the greater coverts would lack the intricate checkering seen here and be simply dark brown at the base, fading to a lighter gray at the tips, forming a single band running throughout the length of the coverts. Finally, on the underside, the bird shows more of a streaked/mottled appearance than the smooth medium brown belly of your typical American. All things considered, this seems to make a pretty convincing case for Vega. Although to be clear I am no gull expert and due to the dizzying variety of hybrids and other oddities we get along the pacific coast I will not rule out there may be something I don't know that points in a different direction.

Technical information

Model

ILCE-7RM3

Lens

FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS

ISO

400

Focal length

600 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire

f-stop

f/6.3

Shutter speed

1/2000 sec

Dimensions

3298 pixels x 2206 pixels

Original file size

7.28 MB