Ring-billed Gulls - something different

Not usually of much interest to photographers (except for monthly themes!), gulls are one of the most popular families of
birds with birdwatchers, mostly because of the great identification challenges they present. Gulls take 3 or 4 years to mature,
and each year - or cycle - has different plumage characteristics even within the same species. Add to that the fact that different
species routinely hybridize, and you can see that gull identification complicates quickly! Here is a panel I put together 2 years
ago to show the maturation progression of the Ring-billed Gull (RBGU), a '3-year' species. All of the photos we taken at the
Salton Sea in Southern California with the same settings (within ~30 mins). It was really cool to get all the ages under similar
lighting conditions. Each cycle is presented in both the upstroke and downstroke.

All taken with Canon 400mm f/4 IS DO II + 1.4x III on EOS 7D Mark II
1/4000 at f/7.1, ISO 640

That's cool!

Nice! Great info and images Dorian. Thank you

Well done, Dorian. Worth filing away for future reference.

Like how you have the up and downstroke for each age. Thanks for sharing this info it will come in handy.

Well done and educational. I love gulls :)

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