White-winged gulls at Ashbridges Park Saturday

[Andreas Jonsson]

There were four white-winged gulls at the Marina in Ashbridges park this afternoon, two adult and two sub-adult individuals. I would have taken them all for Glaucous gulls, due to their nearly Herring gull sized bodies. However, a couple of things were puzzling me.

1. They weren't bulky-heavy looking in flight, yet seemed bigger than Iceland gulls I have experienced in the past.

2. The two adults both displayed gray wingtips, not all-white, as expected for Glaucous.

3. The sub-adult individuals had mostly short black bills with green-pinkish base, quite different from the normally distinct black-tipped long bills of you Glaucous gulls.

Two crops are shown below (these are hand-held digiscoped images)

[thouc]

I think your suspicion that they were Iceland Gulls is correct. The black bill on the first winter bird is a good character. The bill is not big enough for Glaucous either. "Nearly" Herring Gull sized also fit with Iceland Gull as Glaucous Gull is larger than Herring Gull.

/Thomas

[Brian Bailey]

I would agree with Iceland for all the same reasons plus the relative size in the first photo.  The bird in the foreground appears to be similar in size to the Ring bills(?) behind.  A Glaucous would look much larger in comparison.

BB

[Andreas Jonsson]

Thanks for your comments.

Brian, the gulls in the background are ring-billed, yes.

Regarding size, these "white-winged" gulls were distinctly larger than the Ring-billed gulls, and I think that's what threw me off, thinking that they were big enough to be Glaucous. Now, I am leaning toward Iceland too, since wing-tips (on adults) and bill (on sub-adults) point in that direction.

[Bluffs Birder]

Iceland Gulls are fairly common (in small numbers) during the winter months at Ashbridge's Bay and at Bluffer's Park.

A couple from last year...
   

Walter