Hi: The water was calm on Cherry Creek SP, not even a wave, just the small assortment of the usual ducks, so I decided to scope those annoying-looking gulls standing on the logs at the marina, adjacent to the dam in the northwest corner. There were about 5-7 Herring Gulls and many, many adult Ring-bills and on one log was a smaller cluster of ?? gulls consisting of either first summer plumage Ring-bills or second winter California Gulls transitioning to a third or adult winter type plumage. Determining mantle color was hopeless as any small shift in position a dark mantle gull would turn into lighter mantled gull and the same was for a smaller gull shuffling on the log, would suddenly change into a larger one. The leg colors were neither yellow or pink just various shades of in between tones. Occasionally some would flap their wings and fly in circles screaming and shouting and return to the log. The upper tail consistently showed a thin, dark band at the end of the tail. The field guides seem to suggest that while it is possible for the California Gull, in latter stages of molt, so show this feature it would be more usual for the Ring-bills to show this thin dark band at tail end, So I concluded those ???? gulls were probably Ring-bills??
As I’ve learned the hard way there is nothing wrong with skipping those gulls at the marina and continuing down the road to watch colorful ducks dabbling in the smaller ponds. Bob Righter Denver CO -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/EA19656B-6FE4-453F-92CF-527BA11AD4ED%40earthlink.net. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
