www.gull-research.org

Yesterday Christian Pedersen and me spotted an interesting gull in Byparken, Bergen. We managed to catch it and ring the bird. Our immediate thoughts was Caspian Gull, but this seemed to good to be true! Caspian Gull is a major rarity in our county (Hordaland) and this bird will be the first or second observation ever if accepted. The bird was ringed with black JN879 and normal metal ring on the other leg.

Yesterday the pictures was sent to different gull experts in Norway and with help from Morten Helberg to Theo Muuse and Kjeld Pedersen. They all agree that this looks very much like a Caspian Gull. Do you experts here at the gull-research forum agree and do you think we can exclude Caspian x Herring Gull?

Thank you very much for comments. Here are the pictures available:
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Urban ringing
Bergen, Norway
http://urbanringing.blogspot.com/

At an earlier date (2012.12.10 Frode Falkenberg showed me a couple of pic of this gull, which can be seen here:http://www.flickr.com/photos/cyberbirding/8261352039/In my eyes it seemed to be a fine looking 1cy Caspian. Today I was sent the new in hand pic taken by Christian and Arild yesterday. I sent comments to FF and suggested a 99,7 % 'clean' Caspian, now 3cy. On the new in hand pic there´s no visible mirror on p10 - which not all Caspain at this age shows. On the other way around - it can be seen by 2cy Herring. I gad some concerns regarding the looks of the 2:nd generation scapulars - looking rather Herring like.

JanJ

For a 2nd winter bird, its the first generation looking tail that bothers me....

Theo

that bothers me not so much, theo, 2nd gen. caspian tail can be very variable and resemble a lot 1st gen.
but the bird is quite retarded in many respects, might this (together with the place it turned up) give a hint towards a more northern breeding ground and as such being more in danger to bear some non-cachi-genes?
i'm afraid it is not possible to 100% exclude a hybrid or ancestor of a hybrid. bill shape might add a bit, lack of p10 mirrors, short p10 tongue. but all in all it looks good for a late developing cachinnans.

lou