Odd Herring Gull

The following pictures were taken by George Jett, at the request of Nikolas Haass, on our December 11, 2004 pelagic out of Lewes, DE. Nikolas has asked it be put up for comments. Comments will be accumulatd and posted at the bottom of the page.

Per Nikolas: Paul Guris, George Jett, myself and others saw an interesting gull on the Lewes pelagic, December 11, 2004. I immediately thought of a European Herring Gull or an odd-looking American Herring Gull of the northern population. George took the following two pictures.

Photo #1 - Sitting

Photo #2 - In Flight

Comments

Comments can be sent to Paul at . Be sure to indicate if you do not want your comments posted, or if you want them posted without your name.

Martin Gottschling:
Per reply to Nikolas, he thought it to probably be an odd American Herring Gull.

Bruce MacTavish:
"Sorry for the late (!) reply to your email. The gull could very well be a European Herring Gull. A thinner tail band would help but still with in range. The heavily notched tertials are a good sign. I would be excited to see a bird like this in Newfoundland and would probably end up calling it a European HEGU. You get a lot more out of a bird in the field than from just two photos. It looks very good. Not going farther than that with this information."