Contributor
Date
Location
- Age and sex
- Adult, Unknown sex - X
Media notes
still drinking. When they do not have water they will eat snow immediately after flying.
Observation details
FRS, submitted 01.19.18 Medium-sized gull @ the same size as adjacent Herring Gulls with all white underwing seen upon approach and also when it did a wing stretch on the ice. Bird seen to have with very small dark markings on the outer primaries of the upperwing, but none on P10 and none on the P9 that even neared the primary coverts. The lack of more extensive black on the upperwing, especially the lack of any on either the P10 or P9 extending to the primary coverts, rules out Thayer's. Large rectangular-like apicals making the resting wing appear to have more white than black is also good for Kumlien's. Gull was backlit by the setting sun, which set at the same time it was first seen- 544 PM- and eye appeared dark. On enlargement of the first photo in the series the eye looks more golden or amber. Have spoke with someone that sees Kumlien's on a regular basis in Newfoundland and they are regularly seen to have dark eyes. (Thought that might be a phenotype explicit for Thayer's.) Lake of the Woods, near Bremen, was frozen entirely solid today so the gulls from the Prairie View Landfill are likely coming to the St. Joseph River instead of going there to roost at night, although the numbers here are a little lower than what was seen at PVLF today ( @ 250). (Although this gull here, with the brown marking on it's left upper neck, looks like one I saw in Elkhart recently.) Had been here since 4 PM looking for rarities and this bird came flying in from upriver, as all the birds had been seen doing, to land on the ice at 544 PM, which is the time of sunset. It began drinking from the river for several minutes after landing. Then it floated in the river a bit, got up on the ice, stretched it's wings, then took a short flight and landed back on the ice near where it took flight from.
Technical information
- Model
- COOLPIX P600
- ISO
- 800
- Focal length
- 412.8 mm
- Flash
- Flash did not fire, auto
- f-stop
- f/6.5
- Shutter speed
- 1/40 sec
- Dimensions
- 3264 pixels x 2448 pixels
- Original file size
- 2.56 MB