Date: 10/29/25 4:13 pm From: Kate Edwards <kmedwards400...> Subject: [MBBIRDS] Juvenile Gull ID Help
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. [image: Thayers1.JPG] 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!
