Hi Tweets,

For those of you who aren't inclined to rush off down the street screaming
when the dreaded words 'Gull Identification' are uttered, you might be
interested in the following good review (reproduced by permission) by Bob
Lewis of John Dunn's gull video.

M

> As November approaches, bringing with it the promise of another gull
>season, what better time to watch the video "The Large Gulls of North
>America," narrated by Jon L. Dunn and produced by John W.Vanderpoel.
>I've been asked to review this video for birdwg01, so here are some
>thoughts.
>
> [Let's get this disclaimer out of the way right away: though I was
>sent the video so I could review it, I have no financial or other
>connection to the producers or authors of this video.]
>
> The video covers 13 species of "large white-headed gulls" that one
>may reasonably expect to meet in North America, although several of them
>occur rarely at best in North America and would take a lot of effort to
>find. The smallest gull covered in the tape is L. fuscus fuscus, the
>Scandinavian form of Lesser Black-backed.
>
> The format of the tape is that the viewer is shown film clips and
>stills of the species one after another, narrated by Jon Dunn, with
>occasional flashbacks for comparisons with similar forms. Given that
>this is a video designed for television and VCR, that is probably the
>best way it could be done. There is probably no way to duplicate in
>this medium those field guide pages with side-by-side images of many
>immature gulls in flight.
>
> The video begins with a discussion of nomenclature, such as
>primaries, tertials, mirrors, primary tip extension, etc. It is nice to
>have the camera zoom in on these features and have them highlighted.
>That is probably more effective for beginners than just seeing arrows
>pointing to them in a book. Similarly, a good review of the age plumage
>cycle is given with images of various species in the successive age
>groups. Effective use is made here, and later, of stop-action
>techniques to point out the salient features. I liked it that already
>this early in the video, Jon is emphasizing the variation that one
>encounters in plumages, such as two second winter Herring Gulls showing
>different amounts of gray and brown on their mantles and coverts.
>
> The heart of the tape is the series of video clips and descriptions
>of each of the species. The birds have been photographed in the wild in
>typical situations (although I don't think I saw any dumps anywhere).
>Jon's voice-over narration covers the field marks of the birds being
>pictured. All ages are covered for all species, which is quite an
>accomplishment, especially for Slaty-backed and Vega. Almost every
>species-age class is shown both standing and flying. The quality of the
>video images is excellent, both as to size and sharpness, which is
>especially impressive for the flying birds. The rarer species, like
>Yellow-legged and Thayer's [pardon my East Coast bias], are constantly
>being compared to smithsonianus with informative flashbacks and
>side-by-side images.
>
> I am not going to try to critique every segment, or even every
>species -- there are far too many! Instead, I will concentrate on three
>species that I know pretty well, Lesser Black-backed, Herring, and Great
>Black-backed.
>
> The "chapter" on Herring Gull has plenty of images of all age groups,
>and further, has shots of different looking second winters and different
>looking first winters. There are even images and discussion of the
>European forms argenteus and argentatus, though not every age is covered
>for those. Relevant to some recent posts on this listserve, I was
>interested to see what the authors had to say about the primary pattern
>of adult smithsonianus. They agreed with my own opinion that the usual
>situation is for one mirror on each of P10 and P9. However, there was
>no discussion of the extent of black on the primaries P7, P6, and P5,
>and no mention was made of variation in the shade of gray of the mantle
>of adult smithsonianus. Along the same line, the authors state that
>adult L. a. argentatus is darker than smithsonianus; however there is
>much variation in the mantle shade of L. a. argentatus and it's not that
>simple. I would also question the authors for repeating a statement that
>one often hears, that the underwing of adult smithsonianus shows no
>contrast between the secondaries and the underwing coverts, that it is
>just all uniformly white. In my experience this is usually not true,
>there is some contrast and the secondary region usually seems slightly
>grayer. Later in the video, during the segment on Thayer's Gull I
>believe, there is footage of smithsonianus to support this.
>
> For Great Black-backed, I was looking for two things: what the
>authors said about adult eye color, and whether they had any good images
>of second year birds. On the latter I was not disappointed; they had an
>excellent segment on telling second winter from first, which is often
>tricky. On the former, I was a bit disappointed that they repeated the
>usual line that the iris is pale, but sometimes one must look very
>closely to see it. In my experience, the eye looks dark under the large
>majority of field conditions. What my opthamalogist could see with his
>instruments is not really relevant.
>
> Lesser Black-backed is a species I have spent a lot of time
>photographing and writing about. I was pleased that the authors covered
>well the field marks for distinguishing adults of the three classic
>races. However, they neglected to point out that there is considerable
>variation in the mantle color of adult graellsii, even though one scene
>shows individuals of noticeably different shades. Typically for this
>video, there are wonderful shots of a Lesser right next to a Herring
>right next to a Great Black-backed, as if they had been posed. As a
>photographer, I can appreciate how much work goes into producing such
>scenes. I was especially pleased to see some footage of L. fuscus
>fuscus, as I have never seen one in the wild.
>
> As I mentioned above, I was really impressed to see so much great
>footage of Slaty-backed and Vega. This alone makes the tape worth
>buying. On top of that, there are shots of the Kelp Gulls from the
>Chandaleur Islands, the only images I have seen for those birds.
>
> Hybrids are covered too (another hot topic here on birdwg01),
>especially the West Coast hybrids. But I did think that more could have
>been done with Herring X Glaucous, in that no adults are shown.
>
> The comparison of Thayer's and Iceland is very complete. Again, that
>alone would make the video worth buying. I was especially interested in
>the comparison of tail bands in these two forms.
>
> This is just my personal opinion, but Jon Dunn was a great choice for
>the narrator. I love listening to his voice. One more bonus for me was
>hearing Jon pronounce all those Latin names I have been reading for
>years! wymani? occidentalis? argenteus? birulai? It was great to
>find out what those names sound like.
>
> All in all, this is a very impressive video. I learned a lot. The
>authors have managed to hit a good level. The quality and thoroughness
>are first rate. There is plenty here for all gull watchers, no matter
>how many years they have been at it.
>
> The only real flaw is not a failing of the authors at all, it is
>rather a flaw of the nature of video tape, and television. One wishes
>for a format in which the viewer had complete control to "flip" from one
>place to another, as in a book. Maybe in a few years when we all have
>500 meg of RAM and 1000 mhz computers....
>
>
>Bob Lewis
>Sleepy Hollow NY
>lewis at bway.net
>