www.gull-research.org

hey,
The following Gull I photographed on the 1.8.2012 at Meldorfer Hafen (German Wadden Sea).
The bird has only 2? visible Secondaries on each wing.

My first thought were Yellow-legged Gull (but I haven´t much experience with Gulls and no experiences with summer Gulls).

I showed the bird to Detlef Gruber who favoured Yellow-legged Gull and Ronald Klein who can´t exclude Lesser Black-backed Gull sure.

So I hope you can help me

Greets Armin

hi armin,

i'm quite confident that this is a 2cy michahellis. you can see 3 secondaries on each wing plus another one(or two?) like a "dent" in the right wing. if you count from outwards don't forget to count the missing p9.
its bill is enormous and fits well a male YLG. smudge around eye on an otherwise white bulky head, some contrasting marked lower scaps on an otherwise greyish ground and some pale grey scaps shouldn't leave doubts.

lou

Also, new inner primaries are too pale for LBBG.

Thanks for your comments.

Greets Armin