IDing Gulls

[thewoose]

Trying to pick up numbers for my Year List challenge, I realised how rubbish I am at Gulls (not as bad as I am at waders, but there's a lot more of them and you don't see them as often!).

The problem is, they all look the bloody same. White, grey or black back, big yellow beak. How can you tell them apart? Bird books say things like "larger than a Herring Gull" but that's not much use at 200 yards with no Herring Gull stood next to them for comparative purposes. Or it's "this has pink legs" which doesn't help in flight...and don't even get me started with "has larger white patches at the wing tips than the Lesser"!!!

So I thought I'd begin - and ask for contributions to - a simple ID guide to gulls, just highlighting the key feature that differentiates them. What really annoys me is that I can't help but think I've missed the rarer gulls, especially in a large wheeling flock, as I couldn't clock the key identifiers (just to confuse things, gulls seem to remain juvenile for a long old time, and their patterning alters constantly throughout! I thought I'd clocked a Ring-billed Gull the other day, then realised Lesser BB Gulls have...rings around the bills when young ). So:

Black-headed Gull: Brown head in summer, black spot behind eye in winter
Herring Gull: Grey wings, angry look, red spot, pink legs
Common Gull: shorter neck, no red spot, green legs
Lesser BB Gull: black or dark grey wings, yellow legs
Greater BB Gull: black wings, pink legs

If people can add the rarer gulls I'd be very grateful - and looking at Mighty Maiden's post from earlier I'm sure I wouldn't be alone!

[Shrike]

My advice would be to become familiar with the 5 Gulls mentioned then if you see anything different you can take it from there.
For instance note the tertial stripe on commmon and herring gulls then look at it on ring-billed.ive heard the tertial stripe on ring-billed likened to a piece of string and think thats about right. , also the grey mantle is much paler on ring-billed than herring and slightly darker on yellow-legged than herring. Theres a lot to take in i'd say just take your time with it.
for future reference theres a good gull i.d blog here www.birdersplayground.co.uk

[Deb London]

In response to thewoose: Yes, yes, YES and PLEEEASE can someone add Caspian, maybe after the basic gulls are done. Thank you.

PS I'll add another website (in addition to the excellent site given by Shrike) to keep you entertained for now:

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

(Common Gulls are no problem when they open their bills. That call is very distinctive and raises my hackles every time.)

PPS Leg colour for LBB Gull was no help whatsoever for me. The LBB Gulls that I was looking at were immature, and therefore had pink legs.

[htcdude]

Originally Posted by Deb London

Gull Research Organisation

This is the site I usually use, definitely recommend it

Nige

[RoyW]

Originally Posted by thewoose

The problem is, they all look the bloody same.

No they don't - but some can look similar!

Originally Posted by thewoose

How can you tell them apart?

With practice and careful observation.

Originally Posted by thewoose

Bird books say things like "larger than a Herring Gull" but that's not much use at 200 yards with no Herring Gull stood next to them for comparative purposes. Or it's "this has pink legs" which doesn't help in flight...and don't even get me started with "has larger white patches at the wing tips than the Lesser"!!!

Features like these are all relative, and subject to variation depennding on things like sex, race, and age - which makes it even more complicated than you might first think (sorry!). It is possible to see a Herring Gull and a Great Black-backed Gull side by side, and find that the Great Black-backed Gull is smaller. Wing tip pattern can be very useful, but it is often difficult to use, and needs to be learnt through observation.

Originally Posted by thewoose

So I thought I'd begin - and ask for contributions to - a simple ID guide to gulls, just highlighting the key feature that differentiates them.

Unfortunately a simple ID guide to gulls doesn't really exist.
Adults generally aren't too difficult for the most part, so it is best to start off by trying to learn to identify them (more or less ignoring all of the immature plumages at first), but even with adults you will find that there can be considerable variation between individuals, and due to lighting conditions, and you also need to take into account the variation between different races.

Originally Posted by thewoose

What really annoys me is that I can't help but think I've missed the rarer gulls, especially in a large wheeling flock, as I couldn't clock the key identifiers

Apart from the white-winged species (Glaucous, Iceland, and we'll also include adult Mediterranean) you should forget about trying to pick out the scarcer gull species in flight - at least until you have considerable experience with gull ID.
Concentrate on gulls that are on the ground in places where they tend to gather (preferably standing rather than swimming so that you can see their legs at first). One tip for those who are starting out with gulls would be to find a group of gulls on a playing field somewhere. Away from the coast these will typically be mostly Back-headed Gulls (red bills + legs), with a few Common Gulls (only slightly larger than the Black-headed, with yellow bills and greyish (or yellowish) green legs). A few larger Herring Gulls or Lesser Black-backed Gulls might join them, especially near the coast, and these will have heavier yellow bills with red spots on them.

Originally Posted by thewoose

(just to confuse things, gulls seem to remain juvenile for a long old time, and their patterning alters constantly throughout! I thought I'd clocked a Ring-billed Gull the other day, then realised Lesser BB Gulls have...rings around the bills when young ).

Juvenile and immature gulls often cause more of a headache than the adults (even more individual variation) and for beginners to gull ID I would generally suggest that you ignore any with signs of immaturity (brown feathering in the plumage being the main indication that you aren't looking at a mature adult).
Learning the adults first means that you are better placed to use features such as size and structure when you then try and learn the immature birds.

Originally Posted by thewoose

So:

Black-headed Gull: Brown head in summer, black spot behind eye in winter
Herring Gull: Grey wings, angry look, red spot, pink legs
Common Gull: shorter neck, no red spot, green legs
Lesser BB Gull: black or dark grey wings, yellow legs
Greater BB Gull: black wings, pink legs

If people can add the rarer gulls I'd be very grateful - and looking at Mighty Maiden's post from earlier I'm sure I wouldn't be alone!

Black-headed Gull: The smallest "common" gull species with a red (or orange) bill and red or orangy legs at all ages. Adults have the head pattern described above (though a few will already be in breeding ("summer") plumage, and most will have moulted out of their breeding plumage by August.
In flight there is an obvious white leading edge to the outer part of the wing.




Common Gulls: are not much bigger than Black-headed Gulls, with a yellow bill, yellow-green legs, and white head in summer, and yellow bill (usually with a narrow black ring), greyish-green legs, and a streaked head in winter. The wing-tip is black with a fairly large white spot within the black visible in flight. There is no red spot on the bill.








A Common Gull wit Black-headed Gulls:

[RoyW]

The three larger species from the most numerous five, are all usually noticeably larger than Black-headed or Common Gulls if they are seen together, and they all have heavier bills which are yellow with a red spt on the lower mandible in adults. The head is white in the breeding season, with variable amounts of streaking in the winter (like Common Gull)...


Herring Gull: Pale grey upperparts (back and wings) with a black and white wing tip (with a less obvious white patch within the black than Common Gul). Adult Herring Gulls also have a pale eye, while adult Common Gulls have a dark eye. The legs are pink (often slightly brighter in the breeding season).
The grey on the upperparts is usually pale (similar to the colour on Black-headed Gulls), but it can be darker in indiividuals of the northern race (matching the colour of the back of Common Gulls) - and just to confuse things, a few individuals, mainly northern ones, can have yellow legs - but don't worry too much abou this, because it is very rare that you will see a Herring Gull with anything other than pink legs in the UK. The northern birds (race argentatus, compared to our argenteus) tend to be larger as well, with more white in the wing tip.





Lesser Black-backed Gulls: Are similar in size to Herring Gulls (but tend to average a little smaller and slimmer). Structurally they also differ by looking as if the wings and rear end have been "stretched out". The upperparts are a dark grey colour, but still contrast with the black wing tips in the graelsii race which breeds in Britain, but a much darker colour, almost black, in the intermedius race which are widespread in the UK in winter. Be careful in winter when the legs can be much less bright, and can be a "fleshy" yellow colour.







Great Black-backed Gull: Is larger than all except the largest Herring Gulls, and has a proportionately heavier bill than either Herring or Lesser Black-backed. The uperparts are very dark, almost black (Though can look slightly paler in strong sunlight), and barely contrast with the wing tips. The legs are pink, like Herring Gull.
Great Black-backed Gulls tend to look noticeably bulkier (and meaner!) than most Herring Gulls, and much bulkier than the slimmer Lesser Black-backed.

[elvisoneill]

Deb and Shrike

Thanks for the links to those 2 excellent sites.

Bookmarked!!

[thewoose]

Thanks RoyW, that's absolutely brilliant and just the job. So Lesser Black Backed Gulls tend not to have a black back at all round here? Typical Gull behaviour, that - lulling you in.

Any hints on clocking the rarer species would be appreciated (by anyone) - would hate to think I'd missed out!

[htcdude]

Originally Posted by thewoose

Any hints on clocking the rarer species would be appreciated (by anyone) - would hate to think I'd missed out!

The site linked by Shrike gives good descriptions of most of the world's gulls:

http://www.birdersplayground.co.uk/G...s%20-%201.html

The other UK ones you might find are:

Mediterranean Gull, Little Gull, Caspian Gull, Kittiwake (these I think are more uncommon than rare)

Then there's the rarer ones:

Glaucous Gull, Iceland Gull, and maybe even Ring-billed Gull and Slaty-backed Gull that we've had recently.


Interesting they have Mew Gull on there I thought this was same as Common Gull

Nige

[Adam Cheeseman]

Here's my thread on Ring-billed Gull.

Ring-billed Gull

Only confusion speciues really is Common Gull. See thread for obvious differences.
Cheers,

Adam