A couple personal observations RE: the gull

On my monitor at least, nearly all the photographs appear overexposed than
how the bird actually looks in the field. Making the mantle and scaps
appear paler than in real life, and turning the legs a more bubblegum pink
color than the pale pink/white that is seen in the field.

When I first saw the bird, what pulled me in was the shape of the head, it
looked very flat headed, but again this is subjective pending on how the
bird postures himself.

I'm not a gull epert, but having studied this actual species this past May
in Virginia and North Carolina and did see some variation in size, which is
why I'm not worried about this bird being on the small end of the GBBG
spectrum. Its still a massive bird, especially compared with some of the
Glaucous-winged Gulls (which is no means a small gull) and in particular the
Thayer's Gull side by side comparison captured so well by Denny.

In closing, I didn't see anything structurally wrong while observing the
bird in the field for 2 hours.

Cheers
Ryan Shaw
Tacoma
rtshaw80 at hotmail.com

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