These two apparent Lesser Black-backed Gulls
(Larus fuscus graellsii) were photographed at La
Marque Race Track, Texas on March 24, 1999 by Martin Reid. This
first bird has a mantle tone rather like a graellsii (mantle tone similar
to nearby Laughing Gulls) close to reaching Alternate plumage
- but the head shape looks very rounded for graellsii,
the apical spots are very small, the small P10 mirror is separated
from the tip by a black band equal to the size of the mirror,
and the eye is clearly flecked with dark - these are all features of heuglini:
This second bird is rather different, being noticably darker than
nearby Laughing Gulls and at least one year from being an adult;
aging this bird is not straightforward, as the pinkish-yellow
legs, fairly uniform upperparts, and white tail point to 3rd-Basic/Alternate
- yet the pinkish tone in the heavily black-tipped bill plus the
dark eye and possible absence of primary mirrors (but check the
bottom image) suggest a younger bird. All but two or three of
the greater coverts seem to be missing, as most of the actual
secondaries are visible - a very odd situation for graellsii
in March, but one commonly seen in heuglini (see my subadult
photos from Bahrain); I also feel the head shape is rather unusual
(gently rounded) for graellsii. As some of you may have
noticed, this is in fact Bird B) from the heuglini
vs graellsii quiz I ran a year ago; only 3 out of 20+
entries selected this bird as the non-heuglini, and two
of those admitted to using the similarities in ground strata in
images A), C) and D) to target this bird!:
