Hello Bob and any others interested,
Sentance one....... I don't want to write this
post....................................
As of yet I have seen no one at all coming to comment about your gull, NO
ONE at all, not the eager "naysayers" nor the often side-line "wonderers".
I swore to myself after my last post regarding this issue, that I would let
sleeping dogs lie, yet I seemingly have one more dog to wake...... This is
not so much about your sighting.......
We were instructed recently that all yellow-legged dark-backed gulls that
could conceivably occur in our area were either Western Meadowlarks or
Tropical Kingbirds....................
The way I see it in my 30 years of birding, either you have the field marks
or you don't.
Otherwise you have a "hypothetical or probable/possible"; or the new "it is
absolutely a Lesser-black backed Gull because I (who ever I am) think it is
much more likely than the others" (as some have offered as actual proof).
A question came across tweeters a couple weeks back asking "what will happen
when Half Moon Bay, California (a gull hotspot) proves their first Asian
dark-backed yellow-legged gull? Will that render all our "LBBG's" moot?
Technically perhaps not now.... but as systematics progress, we may be in a
world of hurt.
To say as a recent authoratative poster did, that because Washington has
200,000+++ confirmed ID's of Western Meadowlark and none of Eastern
Meadowlark, that this is comparible to 3-5 not entirely conclusively ID'd
(as far as I have personally been clued in upon) Lesser Black-backed Gulls
in Washington vs other options is an absolute total fallicy of a comparison,
which should be given no creedence what-so-ever. Nor should the Tropical vs
Couch's Kingbird bogus analogy.
Of course what is expected over what is not expected is huge in our initial
judgement, but has no place in the final critical analysis of field marks.
Either it can be told feather by feather, beak by beak, leg by leg why it is
precisely a LBBG or it can not, which is so often the case with guls.
The point of my posts is that I beg that you take pictures and note detail
when you see a dark-backed, yellow-legged gull. Others have suggested that
you identify the bird by their perceived probability; no need to look beyond
dark-back/yellow legs. NO I say, watch close, most may be LBBG's, but there
is a hard-proven gem waiting there.
Yeah sure, precedent helps in establishing a small pool of options, but it
is no way a method to absolutely determine SPECIES. Of course on the same
hand when looking at Western Meadowlarks, Western Wood Pewees and Trop
Kingbirds, we must err on the side of OVERWELMING previous pattern. WE HAVE
NO OVERWELMING previous pattern of LBBG in WA, just the ones we accepted at
face value. I am NOT saying that the dark-backed, yellow-legged gulls in
Washington are not simply LBBG'S, even though to my eye some don't appear as
most of the THOUSANDS of other LBBG'S I've seen; those who say "it appeared
in all respects as a LBBG" are you addrressing the DARK-Eyes (OK, 3rd
year), LONG-LEGGED and HEAVILY-BILLED appearance. Yes, some LBBG's have
these attributes, but should most of our birds seen in Alaska/Pacific
Northwest contain more of these attributes than the beforementined
population spreading from the east coast?

About these Washington Gulls that have occured so far............ Sure they
are probably regular old LBBG'S, but I would love to read the descriptions
so far written. DO they really toatlly rule out any other gull? I WANT TO
HEAR/SEE feather by feather analysis of these birds relegatting them to
sub-species if possible. My personal motto is WHEN IN DOUBT WAIT IT OUT. If
you get a second chance, GREAT............... otherwise ONE DATA POINT MEANS
NOHING!
Some of these birds don't at ALL look like the scads of other LBBG's I've
seen. Not saying that they are not "LBBG's which have shown a pattern of
forget thie this and that ed by WW "The point is, that normal patterns of
geographic occurrence are an important factor to take into account in
determining an identification". This at it's best could only be 1/4 true.
Anectdotle eveidence should NEVER EVER be taken as a DETERMENING factor,
more so just as a hint and/or guidance. Show me someone who determines birds
species ID's by their "normal pattern of occurance" and I'll show you
someone who overlooks what is at hand. Once again, I am not saying all our
Lesser-black Backed Gulls are not such, but hey, guess what they don't
exactly quite jive with all the other LBB's across the coutry. Many if not
most of these birds detected on the west coast and in Alaska have been
DARK-eyed, LONG-legged and not quite dead ringers for east coast birds.
Hey, I'm all for all our dark backed, yellow legged, dark eyed gulls coming
from Europe to winter on the East Coast, then deciding that the east coast
wasn't far enough, so heading to Colorado to winter, then saying "hey,
another thousand miles or so should suit me, before I migrate back across
the the country to get back home in Europe".
Are there LBBG's breeding in North America that we are not aware of?
I applaude those who have independantly raised the question of their origin.
I have seen (and photographed probale Hueglin's Gull in Alsaska) and though
the Alaska records committee simply opted for LBBG, I don't believe that is
a rock-fast fact. Good question is "why do these individuals have dark eyes

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