[rba] [mou] Fwd: Laughing Gull in Olmsted County

[rba at moumn.org]

I agree with all of Kim's comments.  The thing that struck me most strongly
was the bill (especially the first picture).  I have much more experience
with laughing gulls than Franklin's, and I have always been struck by how
very large the laughing gull bill appears relative to head size.  The
Franklin's bill is comparatively much smaller.  On this feature alone, I
would call this bird a Franklin's gull.
Marshall Howe
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Kim R Eckert <eckertkr at gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Jun 15, 2008 at 12:09 PM
Subject: Re: [mou] Laughing Gull in Olmsted County
To: mou-net at moumn.org


Since no one else has commented on the ID of this possible Laughing Gull as
of Sunday morning, here are some thoughts which I hope are of some help.
First of all, this is under-appreciated ID problem not fully covered in the
standard field guides, since first-summer (i.e., one-year-old) Franklin's
Gulls can closely resemble adult and near-adult plumaged Laughing Gulls.
This is because the upper wing surface of these Franklin's Gulls can lack
the white bar separating the black outer primaries from the dark gray on the
rest of the upper wing surface. This upper wing pattern in flight,
therefore, can look like the pattern of an adult Laughing Gull.
For these problematic birds, I think the best way to separate them is to
look at the UNDER side of the wing in flight. Here, the black on the
Franklin's is limited mostly to the distal half of the outer primaries; on
an adult and near-adult Laughing the black is more extensive, including the
full length of the outer primaries and usually extending partly into the
primary coverts and the inner primaries. Was the under wing pattern visible
to any of the observers?

Looking only at Paul's two photos, I'm reluctant to comment confidentally on
its ID, since they do not show either the upper or under surface of the
spread wing. But the photos do show an incomplete hood (if a Franklin's,
this is consistent with it being first-summer), thick eye-crescents
(suggesting a Franklin's), and the hard-to-see bill seems to be thin and
short (again suggesting Franklin's). If there were direct comparison with
other gulls, perhaps the ID would become clearer, since the Laughing Gull is
larger overall with more of a longer- and pointed-winged profile.

Hopefully, other observers took field notes of this Rochester gull (and the
one reported in Wabasha County a few days ago) so the ID becomes clearer.
And, if either gull turns out to be a Franklin's, the observers should
certainly not feel badly, since many other birders have long struggled with
this problem. Several years ago in Minnesota, there had been several reports
of Laughing Gulls, some by experienced observers (myself included!), some of
which the documentations were later reexamined to show they were more likely
Frankin's Gulls.

Again, this ID problem has never been fully covered in any of the field
guides, and the only reference I know of which discusses it is Kenn
Kaufman's 1990 book *A Field Guide to Advanced Birding*: see pages 112-113.


Kim Eckert


On Jun 14, 2008, at 9:07 PM, Paul Pedersen wrote:

Several of us who saw the possible Laughing Gull this morning in Olmsted
County would like some feedback from the listserve based on photos I took of
the bird.  The photos are not the greatest quality but they are the best we
have.  We thought we would open it up for some discussion and opinion from
others who might have more background in plumage, age and molt of this gull.
Check this link on the MOU website and reply to the group.

http://moumn.org/cgi-bin/recent.pl?op=showcase

By the way, we watched the gull for about 20-30 minutes before it took off
about 10 AM and flew towards the southwest and out of sight.

Paul Pedersen
Rochester, MN
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