And my two cents worth are that the primaries strike me as being too
much contrastingly gray and white between inner and outer webs for
Iceland. And the shade of gray beginning to show on the back seems a
bit too dark for that species. As often happens with gulls its a bit
easier to offer assessment on what it ain't than what it is.
Darrel
On 4/12/2015 1:13 PM, David Mandell wrote:
Since I haven’t seen any comments on OBOL on Mike’s gull, I thought someone should jump into fray -- so here I go …
I’d be hesitant to call this an Iceland Gull. There are a couple of features that don’t feel right to me. First of all, the bird just feels too lanky and doesn’t have the compact look I associate with Iceland Gulls. While the head does look round-ish in the first photo, I don’t thinks it is round enough. In other photos, it looks pretty flat. The bill seems too heavy and insufficiently “pushed in.” Then there is the degree of contrast shown by the secondaries on the trailing edge of the wing – I think it’s too strong. If I’ remembering correctly, the contrasting tail band shown by this bird is also a better fit for Thayer’s.
David Mandell
Portland, OR
