Date: 11/7/25 3:57 am From: Phil Brown <pdpbrown...> Subject: Re: [MBBIRDS] Juvenile Gull ID Help
Sorry Kate I am in Nepal, maybe can take a look when I am back,
Phil
On Thu, Nov 6, 2025, 00:37 Kate Edwards <kmedwards400...> wrote:
> Hi Phil,
>
> Thanks for the response -- I think Iceland Gulls will just continue to
> confuse me for some time. The photo I attached does make the bill look
> bi-colored from the lighting, but the other pictures in the checklist have
> it more consistently black with maybe some grey at the very base. I've
> attached one below.
>
> Blake Matheson also suggested that this individual could be a first winter
> Herring vs a Ring-Billed. Would you agree, or is this one just better
> left un-identified?
>
> Thanks,
> Kate
> [image: Thayers3.JPG]
>
> On Wed, Oct 29, 2025 at 4:27 PM Phil Brown <pdpbrown...> wrote:
>
>> Hi Kate,
>> Iceland Gull (Thayer's) should have pale edging to the primaries, and the
>> primaries look too dark to me, The bill looks bi-colored too (a bit hard to
>> tell from this angle).
>> Regards, Phil Brown
>>
>> On Wed, Oct 29, 2025 at 4:13 PM Kate Edwards <kmedwards400...>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi everyone,
>>>
>>> I was reviewing some photos of a flock of gulls I took at the San
>>> Lorenzo River mouth back in February 2023. My SD card filled up so I'm
>>> finally getting around to sorting through them. At the time I remember
>>> taking photos of any odd juveniles to a) help my identification skills and
>>> b) hopefully capture an Iceland gull in the flock I could ID later. There
>>> were most of our N. California species present with Short-billed,
>>> Ring-Billed, Western, California, and at least a couple of Herring.
>>>
>>> One of them I landed on as a juvenile Ring-Billed gull due to a
>>> combination of size, black on just the tip of the bill, and overall
>>> messiness of the plumage. The pink legs threw me off at first, but I found
>>> other images on eBird showing them with pink feet during the first year or
>>> so. Photos of this one are uploaded here
>>> <https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/644334666>.
>>>
>>> This other one is probably the same, but the plumage seemed a little
>>> more uniform and the bill was fully black. The head shape also seemed
>>> different, but that field marker has always been hard for me to
>>> distinguish. I think I'm leaning towards Ring-Billed, but I just have to
>>> check I don't have a photo of a lifer sitting right in front of me.
>>>
>>> More pictures of both birds can be found on my ebird checklist here
>>> <https://ebird.org/checklist/S127970740>. I appreciate any tips to
>>> getting reliable ID's on these little guys!
>>>
>>> Happy birding,
>>> Kate Edwards
>>>
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>>>
>>
