[va-bird] dark-backed Herring Gull on CBBT


Yesterday in the afternoon I photographed an adult Herring Gull on the 
Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel (Island 3, west side) that appeared to be of the 
race _vegae_.  This is the first such bird I've seen, anywhere, and I don't 
know much about variation in this subspecies, so this posting is really just 
to alert birders to look for a robust Herring Gull here with a somewhat 
slatier back (not as dark as our Lesser Black-backeds) than other adult 
Herring Gulls.  I took about 20 photographs (slides), both of the bird in 
flight and perched among ad. _smithsonianus_ Herring Gulls and ad. 
Ring-billed Gulls, at fairly close range.  I hope to circulate these in 
coming weeks to get some opinions more informed.  

Four-year gulls hybridize quite a bit, and it's entirely possible that this 
bird was nothing other than some sort of backcross of a hybrid bird with a 
Herring Gull; however, I've seen a great many gulls that I have treated as 
likely hybrids, and this bird seemed a relatively "clean" fit with the 
so-called Vega Gull, which hails from the same part of the world as 
Black-tailed Gull and Slaty-backed Gull, both of which have shown weak 
patterns of vagrancy to the East Coast in the past six years or so.  

Ned Brinkley
Cape Charles, VA 
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