From: Don Cecile Date: Sun Jun 1, 2003 7:21:55 PM America/New_York To: Subject: my notes on the possible kamchatka gull Robert, here is a copy of the note I sent out to our local listserv looking for feedback. Feel free to post the description with the photos I sent so people can have a look at both. Cheers, Don At first glance, I saw the bird from the rear and thought that it was a California Gull with its greenish legs. I thought it seemed rather light for California Gull then as it turned its head I thought it was a Ring-billed Gull but the legs were the wrong colour. As I looked at it further, I noticed that indeed it was a Mew Gull but a rather odd-looking one. Description: Soft parts: the bill was long and straight and rather bright for a young bird. The bill was yellow with suggestion of olive colouring and there was a black subterminal smudge (not as defined as the ring on a ring-billed Gull) on both the upper and lower mandibles. The bill was yellower than the legs. When seen in profile the bill approached the length of Ring-billed but not in depth., the bill was definitely slimmer and from a distance of 75 meters, I could see through the narines, thus these breathing holes were quite large. The legs were greenish-yellow and seemed to be a bit longer looking than those of Mew, particularly the amount of exposed tarsus. Although this is rather subjective, this was my impression. Head: the head shape was not as 'cute' or as round as that of our Mew Gulls. Instead, the head appeared more angular especially on account of the slope to the forehead, less steep thus approaching the look of Ring-billed Gull. The markings on the head were not as smudgy as I have seen on Mew. The crown in particular showed more fine streaking than what I have noticed on Mew and the smudging was more concentrated around the nape and lower sides of the neck. The eye was large and was yellow-brown in colour, not as dark as that of Mew yet not as bright as that of Ring-billed. The head-streaking diminished below the eye leaving an area encompassing the lower auricular region and chin to be rather white/clean. Body: The shape of the bird seemed to approach the shape of Ring-billed. It was a bit more elongate-looking and not as small and rounded-looking as Mew often is. The bill length and forehead slope may have exaggerated this appearance. The mantle feathers were adult feathers, darker and bluer than nearby Ring-billed and noticeably darker and bluer than the bleached-gray tones of the wing coverts. In the backlit situation the bird was under, my first impression was that the mantle feathers were lighter than what I would expect for Mew but then as the clouds covered the sunlight the contrast between mantle feathers and wing coverts was much more apparent and seemingly darker than Mew. In other words, I would not be prepared to say whether I thought the mantle shade was darker or lighter than typical Mew. This would of course be particulary hard to objectify since there were no other Mew present. The tertials were partly moulted, some being adult tertials but a few still retaining black sub-terminal centers that were easily visible at a distance, these black areas seemed to be followed by a light gray area then white tips. The wing coverts were light gray with no brown tones present and they looked rather frayed. The primaries were brownish-black with very thin lighter fringes. P 10 had a single mirror present althought this was seen from below as the bird was preening and was not visible from above since P9 was of very similar length. The primaries extended well beyond the tail with P7 meeting the tip of the tail. The tail was largely white with a broken black band present at least on the outer webs of the tail feathers, not clearly visible on the standing bird unless it would preen or fan its tail. While the bird preened, I was able to see light brown horizontal barring on the upper tail coverts. The breast and undesides of the bird seemed to be pure white. Discussion: This bird would appear to be in advanced basic II plumage. The softpart colouration seems brighter than one might expect on a 2nd year bird but the moult sequence would be correct for a 2nd year bird although I am surprised I did not see any brown tones in the wing coverts (of the standing bird since it was not seen in flight). I would eliminate L.c.brachyrhynchus due to the length/shape of the bill, light-coloured eye, smudging on the bill, shape of head. I would eliminate L.c.canus due to , eye colour and prescence of dark-centered tertials. The latter I understand to be gone by second year in canus moult. I have no means to separate kamtschatschensis form heini except that I believe the former is many times more likely to occur here. I look forward to any feedback on this sighting.