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View Full Version : Please ID - Heuglin Gull?


DougRSF
March 17th, 2008, 04:46 AM
Hello,

I am new to SurfBirds. It's a great place to explore!

I was wondering if someone could ID the black-winged seabird in the attached pics. In Pic "1772 Crop" the bird is barely visible in the center of the pic. (This pic actually has two different birds in it. The one with the blue circle around it is the bird in question). I first thought it was a shadow from a kite surfer's kite. The bottom of the bird has redish tint which I believe are its legs. In pic "1773 Crop" the top of the bird is clearly visible along with a hint of redish tint below.

I did not notice the bird while I was taking the pictures.

Looking through the SurfBirds gallery, the black bird appears that it could be a Heuglin Gull. The picture was taken today (3/16/2008) at about 4:00 PM at Half Moon Bay, about 30 miles south of San Francisco. I was facing Northwest. The picture was taken with a Canon EOS5D (ISO 400) using a Sigma DG 28-300mm lens.

Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Douglas

AndyB
March 17th, 2008, 05:12 AM
Hi Douglas and welcome to the Surfbirds forum!

Thanks for posting your photos. The expected dark-backed gull on the west coast would be Western Gull.

Western Gull photos on Surfbirds (http://www.surfbirds.com/cgi-bin/gallery/search2.cgi?species=western+gull)

More images on Google (http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=western+gull)

Heuglin's would be a great rarity and would need a lot of documentation. Your bird looks dark-backed but would be hard from these photos to see if it was different or darker than a Western Gull.

Best, Andy

DougRSF
March 17th, 2008, 05:39 AM
Hi Andy,

Thank you for the quick reply.

You are correct in the the bird is not as dark as I originally thought. I enlarged the photo as much as I could. Although the back of the bird is quite dark, the black wings tips are identifiable. I have attached the larger file for reference.

I think the next time I am at the beach, I'll pay closer attention to the birds and make sure all my camera settings are correct!

Douglas

AndyB
March 17th, 2008, 05:48 AM
looks windy up there!