Yellow-legged Gull

[Dave Brown]

Hi All,

This is pretty much old news now of course as YLGU is annual in Newfoundland,but still represents a huge rarity on a continental scale. We had a high count of 4 individuals in October. There is at least one still being seen regularly. I posted some photos of a YLGU that I saw today on my blog. The species identity is not in question,but it is possible to definitively assign a subspecies to these birds. We kind of assume these are atlantis, possibly originating in the Azores. The first link shows photos of a bird from today and the second shows 2 different birds photographed in October just 10 meters apart.

http://birdingnewfoundland.blogspot.com/2009/12/best-of-looks-at-rarest-of-gulls.html

http://birdingnewfoundland.blogspot.com/2009/12/successful-daybut-mega-tired.html


Dave Brown

[JanJ]

Hi Dave.

These two (http://www.surfbirds.com/media/gallery_photos/20091011050431.jpg) together with this one (http://www.surfbirds.com/media/gallery_photos/20091028051315.jpg), along with others over the years are all nice examples of YLG's reaching N. America.
Usually these are presumed to be atlantis, which probably is the most reasonably candidate for reaching N. America. However, perhaps not always so easy to determine, since perhaps michahellis also might be a candidate. Separating atlantis from michahellis is not always so straightforward, since certain characters seem to overlap creting intermediate impression. The wellknown winter head pattern of atlantis is not so well developed in some (of course also depending on time of year). More black in wintip, note broad black band on p5 in this one (http://www.pbase.com/dophoto/image/69240076) and darker greytone of atlantis together with short-legged impression is some features associated with atlantis but many michahellis fits well into that.

These I assume you have seen of course Dave.

http://www.pbase.com/dophoto/grealeatlantis&page=all

http://www.gull-research.org/

Many here:

http://waarneming.nl/soort/photos/250

Many here:

http://www.martinreid.com/Gull%20website/gullsind.html

Cheers and thanks for a nice blog!

JanJ

[Dave Brown]

Thanks so much for the reply and the links!

Dave Brown