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Hi, LBB Gulls occur at Grand Pre, Windsor Sewage Ponds, and the fields around Canard Poultry at this time of year with increasing regularity. They are also being reported more from Sullivan's Pond and elsewhere in the province. Most of them seem to be typical graelsii, but some do seem to have a darker mantle. However a recent thread on ID Frontiers cautioned against trying to sub-speciate all but the most extreme morphs of LBBG as there is too much overlap - here is the relevant quote - "The Finnish Gull-watchers have tried to work out reliable criteria to identify pale-mantled subspp of LBBG in the field for more than ten years, with very meagre results. My current opinion is that there is no known way to fully reliably identify ANY subspecies of LBBG in ANY age class, even if there are great average differences both in colouration and moult patterns. I would be very pleased to hear well-grounded objections to my view!" I have just come back from southern Spain, where Yellow-legged gulls were abundant. They are a big, brutush-looking, bulky species, rather like a GBB Gull but with a Herring gull's mantle, and of course yellow legs. The bill is relatively short but thick, and the pattern of black and mirrors on the primaries seems rather unique, with more extensive black and a sharp cutoff well forward on the outermost 2 primaries (I have some pics but can't post attachments to NatureNS). As far as I recall there are no good records of YLGU for NS, although approx. 10 years ago there was a good candidate that appeared at the NW Arm in Halifax. However, after various larophiles had seen the pics, they were thought to be a HEGU with yellowish legs (possibly an "omissus" form of the N. European HEGU - which in itself would be fascinating). While we're at it, is there any known way to visually tell N.American HEGUs from European ones in adult plumage? Apparently they are genetically quite distinct, and almost certainly different species. Richard On 10/22/06, Wayne P. Neily <neilyornis@hotmail.com> wrote: > > > Hello all, > > After a fruitless attempt Saturday a.m. to find the Sandhill Crane > reported from Windsor Forks a few days ago, I drove across the lower (east) > part of the Grand Pré, hoping to find a few shorebirds, since it was about > high tide by then (13:30). No luck with them, and not much else except a > few hundred gulls, almost all Herring, scattered across the mostly > bare-ground corn fields. I did get a good look at an American Pipit, but > the wind was high enough that it was mainly car birding. The highlight was > an adult Lesser Black-backed Gull standing with about 100 Herring Gulls near > the Long Island end of that road across the meadows (approaching Marshland > Farm). Its mantle colour was intermediate between those of our L. > argentatus and L. marinus, so I suppose that it was Larus fuscus graellsi .. > The legs were yellow, but it was noticeably smaller than the Herring Gulls > and the head was quite streaked, so I could not make it into a Yellow-legged > Gull, like that claimed by our Newfoundland neighbours Friday. Since there > are now several records of that species from Newfoundland, one from Quebec, > and a few from the eastern U.S., we should be watching for it. Perhaps it > has occurrred in N.S. when i was away and I have not heard of it? > > At Evangeline Beach, the tide was beginning to go out, and there was a > flock of 30 Semipalmated Plovers still there, but nothing else. > > Cheers, > Wayne Neily > Tremont, Nova Scotia > > > "There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, > There is a rapture on the lonely shore, > There is society where none intrudes, > By the deep sea, and music in its roar: > I love not man the less, but Nature more." - George Gordon, Lord Byron, > 1812. > > > > ________________________________ > Say hello to the next generation of Search. Live Search – try it now. -- ################# Richard Stern, 317 Middle Dyke Rd., RR#1 Port Williams, NS, Canada B0P 1T0 rbstern@ns.sympatico.ca rbstern@xcountry.tv sternrichard@gmail.com ###################
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