Kumlien's Iceland Gull

Update on picture:
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Hi Martin,

It's a first year Kumlien's Iceland Gull. The tertials are well checkered throughout whereas the tertials on Thayer's are dark centred and fringed with pale and overall more solid in coloration. Also the folded wingtips on Thayer's are contrastingly darker than the rest of the upperparts unlike this bird. The tail is too pale and patterned for Thayer's too. All this said, keep in mind that Kumlien's is a large variable hybrid population resulting from extensive interbreeding between Iceland and Thayer's. No two Kumlien’s are alike. See Godfrey's (1986) revised edition of The Birds of Canada for more information.

Ron & Jean
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Martin Parker, Vic Rizzo, Fred Pinto and myself went to the North Bay Landfill and saw lots of gulls, hundreds of them. Mixed in the Herring Gulls were about ten Glaucous Gull, about five Iceland and many Great Black-Backed Gulls. In the picture at the left is an Iceland Gull. Notice its all black beak which helps distinguish it from the slightly larger Glaucous Gull.

I saw all three of these arctic gull at various ages.

Brent

Welcome to the Bird Wing blog for North Bay, Ontario and surrounding area.

Today I got out early from work and was able to do some birding. It is difficult to do birding on weekdays in the winter because I get only a tiny window before and after work if it all.

I visited some of the usual places. The most interesting finding was a male Hooded Merganser at Sunset Park. I also saw a Common Goldeneye at Sunset and a bunch of Common Redpolls on the bikepath just off Marshall Street.

Brent