ad cach from Romania, May 2009

[Martijn Bot]

About cachinnans and the dark markings op P5: what do you think about the bird I saw yesterday in Groningen, The Netherlands? Looks like a perfect cach to me (unfortunately I wasn't able to read the code on the ring), however, the bird seems to lack any markings on P5. I'm very interested to know your opinion on this bird.
http://www.pbase.com/martijnbot/image/148505691
http://www.pbase.com/martijnbot/image/148505690
http://www.pbase.com/martijnbot/image/148505689
http://www.pbase.com/martijnbot/image/148505688

[hieraaetus]

Hi Guys,

I will get in the ring with my own CG without P5 dark mark (at least nothing from underneath, but unfortunately I have no pix from above).

Cheers,

Gabor

picture taken in November, 2011 in Hungary.

[lou bertalan]

hi martijn,

it seems we have to accept that a very few caspians or - to be more precise: some adult gulls that look perfect for cachinnans don't have a p5 mark at all. tehy occure in their breeding area too, this is theo's pic from danube delta (mai 2009): download/file.php?id=214 from the first page (post 7) of this thread.

of course it is not said that everything fits in your bird, any underwing shots, martijn?

lou

[Martijn Bot]

This is all I've got. And again, no sign of any marking on P5.

[lou bertalan]

it seems to have a short p10 tongue - indication of tatus? many adult type cachs or younger adults have medium tongues in length though, so this is not a real indicator. shape of it might be - rectangular would be pretty good for cach, only few cachs have diagonal demarcation like argentatus or round ones like michs.

[Martijn Bot]

It's rather tricky to judge the shape of the tongue from this picture, taken from this angle. I'm afraid that the ring, and therefor the bird, might be from Polish origin. I can hardly believe this bird to be a pure argentatus, despite the fact that the primary-pattern might point in that direction (however not really convincing). Are there examples of birds with such a cachinnans-look from pure argentatus-colonies? Without any views on the wing, there wouldn't be any reason to doubt...