ML61800231

Age and sex

Immature Female - X

Tags

Dead

Media notes

Thank you to Mark Peck of the Royal Ontario Museum for providing access to the specimen collection.

Observation details

The first record of this gull in Muskoka was also the first documented record for Ontario (Mansell 1948; Fleming Record Book of Ontario Birds). On 6 April 1898, Alfred Kay shot an immature female on the Muskoka River near his home at Port Sydney. At some point Kay informed James Fleming of his find and later, most likely in preparation for his Muskoka and Parry Sound checklist, James Fleming had written to Alfred Kay regarding this specimen. There is no copy of this letter, but perhaps Fleming suggested that it was a Glaucous Gull, given the language of Kay’s 4 October 1900 response to Fleming: “It was not a Glaucous Gull that I shot, there is no doubt at all, but what it is [is] an Iceland Gull, Dr. Brodie can bear me out in this statement. I shot it myself on the River near my house on the 6th of April 1898. I made a skin of it and have it now in my collection. It is a fine specimen of an adult female (Kay incorrectly refers here to the bird as an adult)…Color of the eye dark hazle [sic], color of legs and feet pale pink about the same as Larus americanus. Color of bill pale bluish horn, much darker from nostril to point, all above and below finely mottled with ashy and blue-gray, except under parts of primarys [sic] and secondarys [sic] which are silvery white and shaded with pearl grey, small patch on chin white, feathered portion of legs white. Throat and nape of neck lighter than rest of body. Nothing on breast, very fine forming allmost [sic] one solid color of bluegrey.” The specimen was later acquired by the ROM (#2610115), and in his Record Book of Ontario Birds, Fleming noted that the specimen was examined by Major Allan Brooks on 30 May 1935, who agreed with the identification of Iceland Gull. Brooks was an internationally renowned bird artist, and one of the leading ornithologists and collectors of the time, who published widely in scientific and natural history journals and contributed illustrations to a number of important regional works on birds (McNicholl 1994; Winearls 2008).

Technical information

Model

Canon PowerShot SX50 HS

ISO

320

Focal length

4.3 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire, auto

f-stop

f/6.3

Shutter speed

1/60 sec

Dimensions

4000 pixels x 3000 pixels

Original file size

1.91 MB