Hi everyone, unfortunately I had something come up today and haven't had a
chance to upload any photos. Just a quick note to say that I agree with Jay
Lehman's analysis and the bird does appear to be a typical Great
Black-backed Gull in just about every way other than its size, which is
apparently at the smallest extreme for the species. The wing pattern is
perfectly typical for GBB and eliminates Western and Slaty-backed. Western
would not have such an extensive P9 mirror (in fact it should have none) and
Slaty-backed should have considerably more visible "pearls". I don't see any
compelling reason to consider hybrid origin other than the size, which again
is extreme but probably not totally out of bounds for GBB. Sorry for the
delay in uploading new photos. I think the photos John P. Uploaded to
rarebird.org show the key features very well.

Geoff Malosh
Pittsburgh


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