ML263111231
Beitragende/r
Datum
Ort
- Alter und Geschlecht
- adult, Geschlecht unbekannt - 1
- Verhalten
- fliegend
Kommentare
Adult Little Gull in basic plumage present since initially discovered at Young Road on 30 August 2020 by Guy McCaskie was here photographed in flight by Curtis A. Marantz on 10 September 2020 from the seawall north of the west end of Young Road, south end Salton Sea, Imperial County, California.
Beobachtungsdetails
This bird had subtle plumage patterns that combined primarily white and light gray, but also with some blackish. When seen on land, the first plumage character that separated this bird from the terns was the mostly white head. This bird did not have an obviously black cap, but instead, it had a diffuse region of dusky that extended from the junction of the forehead and crown above the eye back across the center of the crown back to the nape and then a short way down the back of the neck before fading to white. Moreover, the not-overly-dark cap also had a diffuse and somewhat fluffy appearance that contributed to the head appearing rather pale overall. The forehead, loral region, superciliary region, and most of the face were white and unmarked. I have a vague recollection that I saw a subtle crescent of black before the eye, but I thought the face was generally unmarked. What was conspicuous, however, was a well-defined spot of black at the rear of the auriculars that was rounded along its rear terminus, but with the leading edge broadly triangular, and with some dusky coloration bleeding forward toward the eye to produce the subtle suggestion of darker auriculars. The underparts were snow-white from the chin and throat, down across the breast, belly, flanks, and undertail coverts. The only contrast on the underparts was evident as a broad and somewhat diffuse band of light gray that extended from the upper back around the leading edge of each wing to the side of the breast to produce the subtle suggestion of a partial collar. Returning to the upperparts, the back and sides of the neck were white, but the back, scapulars, and the closed wings were uniformly pearly-gray in color and without any obvious markings with the exception of the tips of the primaries being broadly white. My recollection is that the tips of the longest tertials may also have been more narrowly white, but this is now a bit fuzzy. I failed to notice any blackish in the closed wings, but what little I could see of the tail appeared to be entirely white. The bill was entirely black, the eyes were dark enough as to appear black in the field, and the legs and webbed feet appeared to be a relatively dark, coral-red in color. My views of this bird in flight were brief, and mostly through the viewfinder of my camera. What I could see was that this was a conspicuously small gull with a short bill, a relatively small head and plump body, medium-length wings that were broad-based and with conspicuously rounded tips, and that the tail was short and seemingly square-tipped. Further apparent was that the head, neck, and underparts were mostly white, yet with the dark auricular-spot apparent and the darker cap somewhat less so. The back and almost the entire upperwings were uniformly pearly-gray; however, there was a narrow band if white along the trailing edge of each wing that expanded somewhat as it curved around the wingtip, but it did not extend forward along the leading edge. The rump and tail were white and unmarked. Also conspicuous on the flying bird was that the underwings were uniformly blackish with the exception of a white trailing-edge that appeared similar in width to what was seen on the upperside of the wing.
Technische Angaben
- Modell
- Canon EOS 7D Mark II
- Objektiv
- EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM
- ISO
- 160
- Brennweite
- 400 mm
- Blitz
- Flash did not fire
- Blende
- f/6.3
- Belichtungszeit
- 1/2000 sec
- Abmessungen
- 1607 pixels x 1036 pixels
- Größe der Originaldatei
- 1.87 MB