www.gull-research.org

hello,

is it possible to tell if this is argentatus or argenteus (the latter of course is much less probable here). it looks too late in moult to be an argenteus, not all scapulars renewed but also some wear, thus prob. not a northern breeder but rather from the middle belt - denmark - scania - southern baltic? just speculation:

http://www.birdforum.net/attachment.php ... 1262803897

http://www.birdforum.net/attachment.php ... 1262803956

http://www.birdforum.net/attachment.php ... 1262804172

http://www.birdforum.net/attachment.php ... 1262804271

Hi Lou,
Difficult to tell. And, first of all, where does argenteus ends and argentatus starts geographically?

About N Russia, did you see this bird KV48: http://www.gull-research.org/hg/hg1cy/kv48nov.html
or this bird (which could walk away unattended if it wasn't ringed) KV79: http://www.gull-research.org/hg/hg2cy/kv79.html

We are still busy (well not really busy the last months/year) scoring the scapular moult in argenteus/tatus from ringed birds in the period 15 November (1cy) until 15 March (2cy). Now I see your question, it should be time again to do soemthing with these data

Mars

We should Mars. Still, this will probably not allow identification of 99% of any individual bird, unless they look like this...