Thursday, January 31, 2013

Iceland Gull, Again

First Cycle Iceland Gull
I stopped at Plymouth harbor the other day, hoping to photograph the Iceland Gull again. I located the first cycle Iceland gull sitting on a post at the edge of the parking lot, eating. I got set up and ready to photograph the gull, when it dropped what it was eating onto the ice in the harbor below. It flew down into the harbor, and I was able to capture some photographs of it on the ice. Looking with my binocular's over the other gulls, I saw a gull with bright red feet and a ringed bill, it had a light gray mantle and no black on the edge of its wings. I obtained some photographs and then went back to the car to get out my bird book for identification purposes, but could not identify what gull this was. Because of where it was located on the railing which was out over the water it was very hard to get other photographs of it although I did move around and after the gull that was on its right flew away I did get some side view pictures. When the gull I was viewing flew away, viewing it showed that it definitely was a white winged gull. Finally when I arrived home and viewed the picture on the computer and using my Stokes Field Guide to the Birds of North America and the Peterson Reference Guide "Gulls of the Americas" I came to realize that it was a second to third cycle Iceland Gull. I then went back and looked at my previous photograph that it taken earlier this month of the gull and realized it was the same gull. I wonder if the bright red legs were caused by the cold weather that we have had recently?
Red Feet
Second to Third Cycle Iceland Gull
Same gull picture taken earlier in the month in bright sun, its legs are not as red



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