dragoness_e: Me in the pink straw cowboy hat (Pink Hat)
Dragoness Eclectic ([personal profile] dragoness_e) wrote2010-03-25 09:16 pm

Identifying Seagulls

I got a nice bird guide ("National Geographic Complete Birds of North America") for a belated Christmas present last month. Now I have a modern bird guide that includes Eastern North America. (I previously got a field guide to Western Birds while I was out in California.) In conjunction with a digital camera, I can identify a lot more birds--I tend to have a hard time remembering all the pertinent details of a quick flash of feathers going by.


Seagulls frequent the park in great numbers, and I've been meaning to identify them one of these days. So far, I've identified two different species.

Laughing Gull


Here we have an breeding adult Laughing Gull (Larus atricillia) on the right, and a 2nd winter juvenile on the left.

More Laughing Gulls... but they aren't laughing!


Ring-billed Gull


The larger gull in the middle of all the Laughing gulls is a Ring-Billed Gull (Larus delawarensis).

More gulls