Friday 7 December 2007

Yellow-legged Gull (Larus michahellis), ad, 28.11.2007, Aarhus East Harbor

This Yellow-legged Gull has fine needle-thin winter streaks in a rather whitish head, heavy bill with strong colours and red gonys spot reaching lower edge of upper mandible, yellowish iris, strong and round head profile on swimming bird, darker upperparts than argentatus in direct comparison, slender and long-winged appearance with elongated body profile. The fresh primaries have smaller white apical spots than the average argentatus and the tip of p6 extends further beyond the longest tertials than seen on most argentatus and p10 is the longest primary on folded wing adding to the long-winged appearance of this species.

It is only the second record of Yellow-legged Gull in Aarhus Harbor this autumn and the same individual was most likely relocated and photo documented by Stephan Skaarup Lund (SSL) on December 1 on the East Harbor and Rune Sø Neergaard together with Erik Dylmer (EDY) on December 6 near DLG also on the East Harbor with photos to be seen here og here.

Note that in some of the photos there is also another local rarity with a potential 3rd winter Western Lesser Black-backed Gull (L. f. graellsii) which was found on the site November 27 by Rune Sø Neergaard (RSN).






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