----- Original Message -----
From: Eugene and Nancy Hunn
To: SGMlod at aol.com
Sent: Wednesday, February 08, 2006 9:42 AM
Subject: Re: [Tweeters] Kent Gull


Steve et al.,

Again, I recommend actually measuring the photographs rather than relying on ones impressions.

I again measured the lengths of the Kent gull's bill in the photos I cited yesterday and compared that to the depth of the bill, measured by a line perpendicular to the horizontal plane of the culmen just in front of the nostril to the lower mandible just behind the gonydeal angle. I did the same for all clean profiles of Iceland and Glaucous Gull photos in Grant. In fact, the Glaucous Gulls bill is not only clearly longer in proportion to the head (as measured by the ratio of the bill length to the distance from bill base to eye) but also more slender than Iceland, with a ratio of length to depth for Glaucous approximately 33% and closer to 40% for the Icelands (including the Kent bird). In other words, the Iceland's bill is not slender relative to a Glaucous but in fact somewhat "stubby." I admit it can be difficult to be absolutely certain about these measurements, but I used a millimeter scale this time. The Iceland's in Grant and the Kent bird's bill lengths varied a bit from to the front of the iris to the front of the pupil. However, all the Glaucous photos showed bill lenths to the far side of the eye if not beyond.

Gene Hunn.

PS: I've wasted enough time on this issue already so I think I'll just keep quiet in the future and let the debate rage on.

----- Original Message -----
From: SGMlod at aol.com
To: Tweeters at u.washington.edu
Sent: Tuesday, February 07, 2006 8:59 PM
Subject: [Tweeters] Kent Gull


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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