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Gull Links |

Update November 28 2006: I've added another similar bird from the intervening year, so there are now three 2CY gulls, one each from 2004, 2005, and 2006:

here are links to the full pages on these three birds:
Click here for 2004 Corpus bird.
Click here for 2005 Corpus bird.(this page has links to another page of imagesfrom Feb 04).
Click here for 2006 Houston bird (this page has links to three other pages of images, spanning Jan 24 to March 29).

These three first-cycle gulls were photographed across three years at different places on the Texas Coastal Plain; note the almost identical pattern of the chest, belly, vent, undertail coverts, axillaries, underwing coverts, rump, uppertail coverts and tail... The 2004 and 2006 birds could almost be the same bird, five weeks apart in molt stage. Does this make them more or less likely to be hybrids (of what?), as opposed to actual Yellow-legged Gulls (presumably of one of the atlantis forms) ?:

Corpus Christi, March 4, 2004 :	Corpus Christi, January, 2005 :	Houston, Jan 24 and Feb 01, 2006:
	light conditions lead to more-contrasting images of this bird
	light conditions lead to more-contrasting images of this bird.

Corpus Christi, March 4, 2004 :

Corpus Christi, January, 2005 :

light conditions lead to more-contrasting images of this bird

Houston, Jan 24 and Feb 01, 2006: