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Glaucous-winged Gull

Western Gull

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California - March 2007

Glaucous-winged Gull

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American Herring Gull

California Gull

Hybrid Gulls

Heermann's Gull

A fairly common gull though not as abundant as Western Gull

Glaucous-winged Gull; 1st winter, Roberts Lake, Monterey 11th March 2007

Glaucous-winged Gull; 3rd winter, Roberts Lake, Monterey 11th March 2007

Glaucous-winged Gull: Adult, Roberts Lake, Monterey 11th March 2007

Glaucous-winged Gull: 1st winter, Roberts Lake, Monterey 11th March 2007

Glaucous-winged Gulls; 1st winters, Roberts Lake, Monterey 11th March 2007

Note the clear difference in colouration of these two birds. The bird at the rear could actually be a Glaucous-winged x Western Gull hybrid as the tertials and wing coverts are not concolourous with the much paler primaries.

Up to ten species of gull occur along the west coast of North America on a regular basis, Western, Yellow-footed, Glaucous-winged, Glaucous, American Herring, Ring-billed, California, Mew, Thayer's and Heermann's. The occasional vagrant will appear, such as the increasing Slaty-backed Gull, Laughing Gull, Franklin's and Bonaparte's Gulls and Black-legged Kittiwake.

In addition there is a multitude of hybrids to scratch your head over and many obvious and less obvious birds were seen, some of these are reproduced below.

I believe I have correctly identified all of the gulls in the following pages but with the plethora of hybrids I may have misidentified one or two of these, comments are welcomed on these birds.

The purpose of this trip was to see as many of these gull species as possible and all of the regularly occurring species, with the exception of Yellow-footed, were possible. During my six days on the coast at Monterey I came across all but Thayer's Gull and most were photographed.

All of the gulls below are lumped together in species order beginning with American Herring gull and then followed by Western Gull, Glaucous-winged Gull, California Gull, Heermann's Gull and then the hybrids; click on the links below to go straight to those species.