Subject: [Tweeters] Sunday Bob sighting
Date: Jan 11 22:34:53 2009
From: John Puschock - g_g_allin at hotmail.com




Hi,

Bob was in his field on 212th St. in Kent this afternoon (11 Jan 2009) between 12 and 2 PM. An unequivocal immature Glaucous Gull flew in around 1:30, too. I put some photos at http://www.zbirdtours.com/bob.htm

I have to say I'm still in the Glaucous camp. Bob's head appears to be more rounded than a typical Glaucous, and overall he/she is on the small side, but I don't think either feature is too extreme for Glaucous, while both are outside what I'd expect for an Iceland. The body looks bulkier than I'd expect on an Iceland, particularly around the lower breast. Also, the eye looks to be relatively small in relation to the size of the head, and it also may be placed too far forward for an Iceland. Since the primary tips are all white, the light was poor, and Bob was pretty far away, I couldn't say for sure where the tail tip was in relation to the primaries, but I got the impression that there was not much extension of the primaries beyond the tail. I'll admit that the distance from the tertials to the longest primary tip looks fairly long, but I'm be more interested in figuring out where the tail tip is in relation to the primaries. (Note that Nat'l Geo. shows primaries barely extending beyond the tail in Glaucous, but photos in Howell and Dunn's Gulls of the Americas show a longer extension on several birds. Sibley also appears to be more generous than Nat'l Geo.)

The eyes appear to be paler than what's typical for a Kumlien's Iceland Gull, and of course, the white primary tips are relatively rare on Kumlien's. Also, I've heard (but haven't seen for myself) that the orbital ring is red, while Kumlien's typically have a purplish ring. Of course, red isn't the "standard" color for Glaucous either, but all of my reference material mention it for that species. However, nominate Iceland Gulls have pale eyes and red orbital rings according to what I've read. Some books mention that subspecies as being the same size as Kumlien's while Sibley and the Nat'l Geo. say that the nominate form averages smaller than Kumlien's. In either case, Bob strikes me as being too large, and as I mentioned, he/she looks too bulky and the size and positioning of the eye looks wrong for an Iceland of either subspecies. Bob's head looks pretty similar to the "small adult" Glaucous shown in the bottom right corner of page 220 in the big Sibley.

Anyway, that's just my opinion. I'm still willing to be convinced otherwise. A look at photos 35.B3 and 35B.4 in Howell and Dunn should take away certainty. I've sent some photos to a couple people in Newfoundland, and I'll post something if I hear anything more definitive from them.

I apologize if all of this has been covered in previous years.

Just a reminder, I have photos of Kumlien's Iceland Gulls at http://www.zbirdtours.com/icelands.htm

John Puschock
Wedgwood, Seattle
g_g_allin at hotmail.com
http://www.birdtreks.com & http://www.zbirdtours.com

_________________________________________________________________
Windows Live? Hotmail?: Chat. Store. Share. Do more with mail.
http://windowslive.com/howitworks?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_t1_hm_justgotbetter_howitworks_012009