Yet more Lake Erie gulls. These images (unless otherwise noted) are taken by John Pogacnik (Copyright 2001).
SEE Ohio Birding News for a recent leucistic Ring-billed Gull
An Iceland Gull (third summer?) with especially pale wing tips. Viewing this, one sees why early gull identification in the Great Lakes made regular reference to nominate glaucoides before we understood the range of variation in kumlieni to include such birds as this. Of course, as John commented, is it even possible to separate such pale birds from the nominate race?
Fig. 1a.
Fig. 1b.
Fig 1c.
Fig. 1d.
Here is an example of a yellowish-legged Herring Gull (as opposed to a Yellow-legged Gull). Of course, there is still room for discussion on just what is a Herring Gull with yellow legs vs a Yellow-legged Gull (until recently itself considered a race of Herring Gull).
Photographer's Comments: This was on the boat docks
at Lorain. As before, it was doing a lot of preening and when it was done,
away it went. It's mantle color was very similar to that of a "typical
California" Gull. It is a fairly good sized bird and was the size of a large Herring. In
contrast to the yellow-legged gull at Headlands (to be displayed in the another set of gull pages), this does have a little
head streaking and the white primary tips are smaller. I get a different impression with this
bird than the ones at Headlands. With the "California Gull" gray mantle and
the smaller spots, it almost reminds me more of michahellis. The main
problem with that though is the head streaking. In flight there seemed to be
more black than in the other birds also. The other bird's underwings were
pale silvery like a Thayer's. This was more of a black.
Fig. 2a. (Bird on the right)
Fig. 2b.
Fig. 2c.
