Unknown gull

[Endrick]

Apologies for the poor images I had my camera settings completely wrong (ISO 2000 amongst other things!) when this gull appeared today. I wonder if anyone can ID it.

[Adam Cheeseman]

It's an adult Iceland or Glaucous Gull. Will need to check to say which one.

I would say Iceland as it appears less bulky than a Glaucous in flight

Cheers,

Adam

[tigertom]

Difficult from these pics but goin to go for adult gluaucous as it just looks a bit chunky for an iceland gull as thay allway seem a bit sleeker looking than a gluaucous to me.
MIKE

[Adam Cheeseman]

Shows you how hard gulls can be! Must admit it does look a bit chunky and possibly heavy headed but then it is hunched up.

Cheers,

Adam

[Shrike]

Its very white ,i'm almost tempted to say ivory gull

[RoyW]

Originally Posted by Adam Cheeseman

Shows you how hard gulls can be! Must admit it does look a bit chunky and possibly heavy headed but then it is hunched up.

Iceland Gulls can look relatively chunky. In this case the head and especially the bill don't look as heavy as would generally be expected on a Glaucous Gull.
So I would tend to favour a bulky (male?) Iceland rather than a small (female?) Glaucous - if it is one of the two.

Originally Posted by Shrike

Its very white ,i'm almost tempted to say ivory gull

It does look very white, particularly in the first photo. This could just be a photographic effect, but if it really is white it means that a leucistic Herring Gull is a possibility for the identification. I'll take another look at the photos later when I can play around with the exposure on the photos (which I hope is OK!).

[Endrick]

It was the startling whiteness that caught my eye. Still very annoyed with myself over the settings. I had a new high quality monopod delivered Wednesday and proceeded to experiment with taking pictures indoors in the near dark and didn't reset the camera. What an idiot! The pictures are already cropped so there is no point in sending originals.

I took the pictures at Ardmore point on the Firth of Clyde.

[tigertom]

Originally Posted by RoyW

Iceland Gulls can look relatively chunky. In this case the head and especially the bill don't look as heavy as would generally be expected on a Glaucous Gull.
So I would tend to favour a bulky (male?) Iceland rather than a small (female?) Glaucous - if it is one of the two.

Had a look at this one again last night late on and you are right the bill dos not look right for Glaucous did a side to side with another pic of a confirmed glaucous in flight to compare and apart from bill did look very good for glaucous but a chunky Iceland is probably the most likely of the two looking at head and bill
MIKE

[Endrick]

Thanks everyone. I had it down as an Iceland but I've never seen an all-white example before- perhaps a youngster?

[aeshna5]

Originally Posted by Endrick

Thanks everyone. I had it down as an Iceland but I've never seen an all-white example before- perhaps a youngster?

It's an adult.