Hey all,
For those of you wishing for more foreign input the discussion on birdforum:
http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=249211
is that the bird belongs to the fuscus group and that there is no reason for it to be fuscus fuscus.
It’s been a very interesting discussion.
Thank you all,
D.
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Hello Mike and others,
John Graff has the right of it and I apologize for the typo! And as racial identification is very tricky and in many cases impossible with these things, ‘Lesser Black-backed Gull’ is probably what it will have to be what it’s left at. […Also fingers crossed that these complexes won’t get split even further in the future…]. I wish best of luck to those submitting the record to BARC, it’s going to be a lengthy submission!
All the best,
Dimitris.
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Hi Mike and others, I won’t touch the ID of this bird as I haven’t the first clue on large northern hemisphere gulls, but as far as I can tell in the BirdForum discussion, one poster has voted for Baltic and two for Heuglin’s? At any rate, unless I’m missing something major the BirdForum discussion seems to mirror the B-Aus one i.e. some think it’s fuscus, some going for heuglini? Responses going for a subspecific ID – my underlines: First response says “I don’t believe this bird is a fuscus (Baltic Gull) but may be an intermedius/graellsii Lesser Black-backed Gull but structurally leaning a little more towards Heuglins Gull which seem to be the more likely candidate for location. The very white headed appearance and not to ‘grey’ above would seem to illiminate ‘tamyrensis’. images has so far only been viewed on my iphone and not on a large monitor so look forward to other comments on this bird” 2nd: “While looking a bit to dark for heuglini and perhaps better for intermedius on upperparts tone – heuglini would be a better mord likely candidate for the location. When I put this on Facebook Yoav Perlman and Ronald Klein and myself suggested heuglini while Ruud Altenburg suggested a possible fuscus.” 3rd: “so, while it’s sort of a tricky bird and i can’t be 100% sure, my strong feeling is that this is a male larus fuscus fuscus.” Cheers,John > From: pterodroma@bigpond.com
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Dimitris, my reading of the Birdforum discussion is that the bird IS a Lesser Black-backed Gull Larus fuscus fuscus, AKA Baltic Gull the first choice for the identity in my original and subsequent postings. Unfortunately you made a typo omitting the fourth-last-word “NOT” in first sentence of your posting below thus reversing the meaning! Do you agree? Of course we await to see if BARC will agree although their interest is only to specific level – Larus fuscus! In the meantime George Swann tells me that the bird was there this morning and appears very settled although possibly missing for half-an-hour yesterday.
Mike Carter 30 Canadian Bay Road Mount Eliza VIC 3930 Tel (03) 9787 7136
Thanks for your comment, Rob. I am also still not happy with the bird’s structure for L. f. fuscus. Maybe a large male? But where does the dark-speckled iris come from? In the European discussion graellsii and intermedius were mentioned. First, I thought (but I don’t know for certain) that the Broome bird’s moult doesn’t fit these two taxa. Second, I remember a paper by Visa Rauste in Limicola, in which he says that heuglini and graellsii/intermedius are more or less inseparable. There is also an interesting paper by Chris Gibbins (Birding Scotland 7 (4): 153-186). However, given the known (or at least speculated) migration routes, the occurrence of graellsii and intermedius in Australia would be very unlikely – in contrast to heuglini and fuscus.
Cheers,
Nikolas
RAUSTE, V. (1999). Kennzeichen und Mauser von “Baltischen Heringsmöwen” Larus [fuscus] fuscus und “Tundramöwen” L.[fuscus] heuglini. Part I. Limicola 13, 105-128. RAUSTE, V. (1999). Kennzeichen und Mauser von “Baltischen Heringsmöwen” Larus [fuscus] fuscus und “Tundramöwen” L.[fuscus] heuglini. Part II. Limicola 13, 153-188.
D’no reason for it to be fuscus fuscus’ or did you mean “no reason for it not to be fuscus fuscus”It still looks wrong structurally to me for fuscus fuscus (I agree with Nicolas Haass on this & his views!). It just looks too heavy and not slender enough to me! But perhaps its on the upper end of the scale – a large male or something? Time will tell! Rob Morris
Brisbane, Australia
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