Mystery dark-tailed gull in Portugal

[Chris Gibbins]

Hi everyone. I hope this is of interest...

Several years ago (2006) I had a dark-tailed gull in Portugal. I came acoss the images again today when looking through some old files and thought it might provide some intertainment on the ORG forum. Can anyone provide some new insights? Ive put the pics on my blog at:

http://chrisgibbins-gullsbirds.blogspot.com/

Some general comments are also there by way of introduction to the bird and my thoughts at the time, but I won't bias the discussion by saying too much. It would be great if someone could help....

Cheers guys

Chris

[adriaens]

Hi Chris,

interesting but tricky bird.
To my eyes, the new inner primaries look too pale for anything but "Herring Gull" in the wide sense, and the tail/rump pattern confirms this.
I think that it is lacking in some crucial features for Smithsonian Gull, even when taking into account that birds in the middle of summer may look far less typical than in winter.
Therefore, I would tentatively suggest that it could be a small Herring Gull, maybe even an argenteus.
Having said that, I must admit that I would probably not look very long at this bird had it been photographed somewhere in North America!

[JanJ]

I would agree with Peter. His suggestion is most probably as far as we would get with Chris gull - I think...

JanJ

[Chris Gibbins]

Thanks a lot guys. I think you have arrived at similar conclusions to me....a tricky bird that seems not to identifiable over here with any certainty, but an interesting individual nonetheless.

Chris