Larry Gara and I spent about an hour with the Lesser Black-backed Gull Larry discovered yesterday. The bird was seen on and just off the beach in good light. The bird was reasonably approachable so that we were able to get good views and passable photos. The bird was in very nearly adult plumage. It was intermediate in size between the ring-bills and Herring Gulls that were conveniently lounging close by. The mantle was dark gray and very uniform. The head was white, not streaked or mottled at all. The legs and feet were yellow. The beak was yellow with a dark smudge near the tip that was being supplanted by a red gonydeal spot. The secondaries were broadly tipped with white. The primaries were long and tipped with little lenses of white. There was a distinct white mirror near the end of P10. When the bird took flight, we saw that most of the rectrices were white but some rectrices with dark tips were retained. Back home, I consulted Howell & Dunn, "Gulls of the Americas," Olsen and Larsson, "Gulls of North America, Europe, and Asia;" and Peter Pyle's new Volume 2 of his "Identification Guide to North American Birds." It is our opinion that this bird is near the end of the third cycle, nearly into its first definitive basic plumage. It has all the necessary characteristics except for some retained second cycle rectrices and the remaining black smudge on the bill with an emerging red gonydeal spot. Larry also had a Lesser Black-backed Gull at this location in 2002. That bird stayed around for months, so we are hopeful that this bird will do the same. I will post my pictures on my blog tomorrow morning. The blog also contains an interactive, scalable map of the area. The URL is in my sig. Cheers, Bob -- Robert D Powell Congress Farm Research Institute Wilmington, OH, USA [log in to unmask] http://rdp1710.wordpress.com Nulla dies sine aves ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]