I do love this discussion, even when I hardly understand it. Like my
violin-playing; if I were to listen to two concert violinists arguing
about how a passage should be played, it'd be the same pleasure. My
favorites today: If it flaps like a duck etc. etc., a bit ironic,
considering it's a gull. And the "reward" of the yellow-billed loon
for the stawarts who made it through CC's email.

What about the idea of the ICGU/GLGU cross? Just curious.

kathryn hornbein
bellevue WA
kurlew at earthlink.net


>Greetings All
>
>Well, here I am, someone whom has not seen the bird offering yet
>another opinion.
>
>1) I'd be most interested in knowing how the nominate Iceland Gulls
>collected in the middle of the US were ID'd. Errors in specimens are
>far from unknown, and I'd love to know what criteria for ID were
>used. The problem is, we don't know if birds breeding within the
>range of Kumlein's always have dark on the wingtips (as this area is
>so inaccessible). A rather large percentage of ICGU's that I saw
>growing up in Chicago lacked dark primary tips. I find it hard to
>believe they were all nominate birds. Personally, I think some
>Kumlein's lack dark on wingtips, and thus the Kent bird (if it were
>an ICGU, see below) could be a Kumlein's rather than nominate.
>
>2) I find it hard to buy the Kent bird as an ICGU. The bill looks
>too thick, apologies to Gene who measure ratios and has seen the
>bird in the wild. The eyering color is not reliable (Doug Schonewald
>sent me photos of an e. WA Glaucous with reddish eyering and Sibley
>mentions it as a GLGU variant). The bird looks too big and too
>stocky in the vast majority of photos I've seen. I've received some
>comments from skilled birders outside the Pac NW who expressed doubt
>about this bird being an ICGU before we started discussing such on
>Tweeters. It does look atypical for a Glaucous Gull, but an atypical
>Glaucous Gull is far more likely than an atypical Iceland Gull. If
>we were living in a place where Glaucous Gull was much rarer than
>Iceland Gull, I'd probably not "buy" this bird as a Glaucous either,
>but would leave it as "unidentified", which is sometimes the best
>course.
>
>Just my opinion. Could be wrong.
>
>Cheers
>Steven Mlodinow
>Everett WA
>
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