February 20, 2006

Birds: Glaucous Gull? What Glaucous Gull?




Today I relocated what I believe to be the same white-winged gull I saw on 2/16/06 in Fulton behind the Hutamaki plant and I am now inclined to call this bird a 2nd winter ICELAND GULL after all. These are a few lousy photos I took this afternoon. The bill/head shape just don't fit Glaucous and structure is always more important than plumage in these situations. Still seems large for an Iceland but I’m afraid I have to take this one off my list. Beautiful bird though, regardless of what we call it. So, my new bird number 70 is a much less exciting Ring-necked Duck. Oh well, we all make mistakes I guess.