ID please

[Christopher Hunter]

http://timewiki.timewinds.net/show_image.php?id=5&scalesize=0&nocount=y
Several birds like this were "blown in" by bad weather near my parents' home in mid-coast Maine. I borrowed my father's camera and managed to get some shots of it on a rainy Sunday. Many people have said they were juvenile gulls, but the heavy, dark, bill and large size of the bird (unfortunately I couldn't get a picture with a good size comparison, but this was a big bird, I would say it was bigger than our usual gulls. We were wondering if it could be a dark phase Parasitic Jaeger, but on examination of more books, possibly a Great Skua.
There are more images in this gallery. http://timewiki.timewinds.net/tiki-browse_gallery.php?galleryId=1&offset=0
Unfortunately the thumbnails aren't very good but the actual pictures do contain the bird (I'm still working out how to use the software.)

[Paul Lagasi]

As to what gull it is, I can only guess but bill shape tells me it is a gull, not a jaeger or a skua...possibly due to its size a Greater Black-Backed Gull...possibly going into first winter bird but due to overcast day the bird shows very dark, leg color, from the photo, is right for it. My other guess's would be Herring Gull, Lesser Black Backed Gull. These are refered to as Dark Gulls....Other dark gulls live on the West Coast but you never know where they'll show up.............Paul

[Dan Brown]

Hi Christopher. My guess is a hatch-year Herring gull, a dark individual.

[Christopher Hunter]

Thank you for your help. After investigating further in my new Smithsonian field guide, I am wondering if it is a cross-breed of the Herring Gull and the Greater Black-Backed which they mention. That would explain both its large size and dark head.

[John Chardine]

Looks like a normal 1st year immature Herring Gull to me. Males are quite a bit bigger than females so this could be a male if it seemed large.

[Dave Brown]

Hey,

Yep,definitely a 1st year Herring Gull. Based on size there are only two other species that are really a consideration, Great Black-backed Gull, and Lesser Black-backed Gull. Runt female Great-Black-backed Gulls can sometimes overlap in size with large male Herring Gulls, but these two species can almost always be reliably separated by plumage characters and there is only really any amount of confusion in worn summer birds and still it usually isnt much of a problem. Great Black-backed Gull is always much whiter in the head and underparts and much darker above- they appear much more checkered than similar aged Herring Gulls and they tend to overal lack the brown tones exhibited by young Herring Gulls. Not to mention the fact that that they tend to have much larger bills thicker legs and if seen in flight they have a fairly narrow white tail band with a streaked white rump vs a thick dark brown tailband and heavily streaked brown rump in Herring Gull. The other consideration is Lesser Black-backed Gull. For the purposes of this discussion it would suffice to say that a Lesser Black-baclked Gull looks very much like a much smaller,slimmer version of Great Black-backed Gull. There are of course many other differences but size alone is ually sufficient to separate these two species.

Dave Brown