Hi everyone, I've been at the Conneaut spit since dawn and the dark-backed mystery gull has been present the whole time, and is still present now. I've obtained many photos including flight shots with the primaries fully exposed. The bird has a very broad mirror on P10 and a smaller but still obvious mirror on P9; there is a very subtle "string of pearls" on P5-7 and P8 is fully black except at the very tip. The bird seems to be rather worn. The bird's iris is medium-dark, not pale like Herring, and the orbital ring under a close view is a pale yellow. As for the size, my impression at times has been that it's ever so slightly bigger than a herring, though at other times it appears to be about the same size as Herring (this could be due to individual variation in nearby Herrings). It's definitely much, much smaller than Great Black-backed. The mantle is very dark, very much like GBB. Overall the bird does not strike me as a classic Slaty-backed and I think an argument could be made for GBB x Herring, though I am by no means an expert in judging the variability in Slaty-backed (I've seen <5 adults in my life). I have plenty of photos which I'll upload to my website hopefully later today. Good birding, Geoff Malosh Pittsburgh ______________________________________________________________________ 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]