Question about secondaries

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adriaens
Posts:229
Joined:Sun Sep 27, 2009 9:24 pm
Question about secondaries

Post by adriaens » Tue Jan 07, 2014 6:45 pm

Hi,

does anyone have any photos of a European Herring Gull with tiny, isolated black spot(s) on the secondaries, as in this smithsonianus:
http://gull-research.org/smithsonianus/ ... br012.html

I cannot find anything similar in my collection of photos, so I am wondering if this is a diagnostic character...

Thanks,
Peter

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marsmuusse
Posts:666
Joined:Sun Sep 27, 2009 12:43 pm

Re: Question about secondaries

Post by marsmuusse » Tue Feb 18, 2014 4:51 pm

Today, with terrible light and eventually a rain front passing over, I went to the beach to take some images of immature Herrings. Construction works at the beach, so many birds present (2500+ including several LBBG and caspians but especially loads of Scandinavian argentatus). Here some images...
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marsmuusse
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Re: Question about secondaries

Post by marsmuusse » Tue Feb 18, 2014 4:57 pm

And a few more. Sorry for the white balance...
The age in the captions is just a guess, I didn't photograph any ringed birds. Not all birds show ink spots on tertilas and/or secondaries, this is just a set of random photographed birds today...
Probably most interesting bird is 8084-8086?
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adriaens
Posts:229
Joined:Sun Sep 27, 2009 9:24 pm

Re: Question about secondaries

Post by adriaens » Tue Feb 18, 2014 6:55 pm

Yeah, 84-86 shows a slightly worrying pattern on the secondaries.
But none of these birds show truly black 'ink spots' or 'piano keys' as typical smithsonianus.

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