A selection of white-headed first-basic Herring
Gulls larus a. smithsonianus, all photographed by
Ted Lee Eubanks in Texas:
The first bird was at East Beach, Galveston on January 21, 1990;
it is rather early to see a contrastlingly-pale head, but otherwise
this bird looks normal, with nearly all of the mantle/scaps being
fresh "double-anchor" first-basic feathers while the
wing-coverts and tertials are worn juvenile feathers:
The second bird was at East Beach, Galveston on January 27, 1990;
The head is even more white on this individual, and again the
fresh first-basic mantle/scaps (note how broad are the distal
dark anchor-marks) contrast with the worn tertials and wing-coverts:
The third bird is very pale and worn, even for a mid-March example
in Texas (birds with such worn coverts are not normally seen until
mid/late April) - to the extent that the mantle appears pale gray;
I feel that in fact most of the mantle/scaps are severly worn
first-basic feathers with the distal "anchor" completely
eroded, leaving the pale gray central band at the tip - and these
overlapping bands create the gray effect on the mantle:
