Adult Glaucous Gulls are rare in the Pacific NW in winter but Iceland gulls
with white-tipped primaries are extremely rare.
Highly unlikely to be Iceland Gull And in flight, the Iceland Gulls have
only white-tipped primaries, not entirely white primarie as Glaucous have.
This could be hard to distinguish unless in flight. I will separately
forward to Tweeters an email I sent recently to OBOL, the Oregon Lists
Server.regarding
Iceland Gulls.
Bob OBrien Portland
On Wed, Feb 12, 2020 at 5:04 AM Tim Brennan <
tsbrennan at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
Hey Tweets,
>
>
I posted a Glaucous Gull sighting on the 10th from the mouth of the Cedar
>
River, but am pulling that identification. At the time, the only confusion
>
species I considered was a hybrid Glaucous x Glaucous-winged, and the pale
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iris made that easy to rule out. Looking on eBird, the sightings of adult
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Glaucous Gulls were pretty infrequent, so I was poking around looking for
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anything else, and came across this:
>
>
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Glaucous_Gull/species-compare/39522551
>
>
<https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Glaucous_Gull/species-compare/39522551>
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Glaucous Gull Similar Species to, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of
>
Ornithology
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<https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Glaucous_Gull/species-compare/39522551>
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Similar looking birds to Glaucous Gull: Glaucous-winged Gull Nonbreeding
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adult, Glaucous-winged Gull First winter, Iceland Gull Adult (Iceland),
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Iceland Gull Nonbreeding adult (Thayer's), Iceland Gull First winter
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(Iceland), Herring Gull Nonbreeding adult (American)
>
www.allaboutbirds.org
>
>
Iceland Gull (Iceland) was not something I had considered at the time, and
>
is an even more disastrous ID (insomuch as there aren't any sightings of
>
these guys in the state). That said I can speak to the 3 or 4 features that
>
would help with the ID. I am running off of this image, and any other
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crumbs I could find off of the Internet, and about 10-15 minutes of scope
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views of the gull at 150-200 feet in excellent lighting.
>
>
Mantle: I was looking at how pale the mantle was, in trying to rule out
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Glaucous x Glaucous-winged. My Sibley's said that the mantle would be
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slightly darker in a hybrid than in a pure Glaucous Gull, and my thought
>
was "How can what I'm looking at be darker than anything?" It wasn't white,
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but such a pale pale grey. The images show the lighter mantle of the
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Iceland (Iceland) almost melting into the white around it, and that fit the
>
impression I got from the bird. The Internet gave me a range for Glaucous
>
Gull - usually slightly darker, and usually a better delineation of the
>
mantle, but not always.
>
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Bill: Those bills both have the red spot I noted. I did not note the color
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in the sighting, but the Glaucous appears to have a pretty heavy bill that
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tends a little towards school bus orange/yellow. This wasn't true of all of
>
the images I found for the species (color wise), but my impression overall
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was that the bill seemed fairly "normal" and also has me leaning towards
>
Iceland (Iceland).
>
>
Facial expression: The sum of the iris, head shape, orbital - seems to add
>
up to a friendlier expression on Iceland (Iceland), something that seems
>
helpful when sorting Thayer's and Herring. This bird did not seem angry.
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>
Size: Would have helped . . . but it was in the water, and was not
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something I was looking for.
>
>
I hope it shows up again, and someone gets a picture. Gulls are, for me, a
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mess. There are so many hybrids running around, and subtle differences to
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sort one out from the other. They are usually more frustrating than
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enjoyable. Look closely at a gull. . . ? Why would I do that, and ruin a
>
perfectly fine day of birding?? But this one was striking, whatever it was.
>
With any luck, someone more pay-attentiocal than I will have a go at IDing
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it, although there were a few eBird lists from the mouth yesterday that
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didn't turn it up.
>
>
Cheers,
>
>
Tim Brennan
>
Renton
>
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>
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>
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>
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>
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