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I have still my problems with breeding plumage of HG (we are clearly out of breeding range )

I see short legs ( not to compare with adult YLG now - just yesterday I have seen again the pair with the Slowakian female!) and complete white tip of P10. But it seems to have (solid?) black on P5...
Seen today at Wörth/Austria.

Wolfgang

Together with the short wing and palish mantle I would vote for argentatus.
Orbital ring colour seen?
Underside of p10 seen?

Theo

Theo Muusse wrote: Orbital ring colour seen?
Underside of p10 seen?

Here the best pic of head with orbital ring - note that the distance was about 25m.
Mars would say: Get out of the car and feed with bread! To do this would mean that you never will see this birds again

Then I have found this 2nd pic with spreaded underside of P7 - P10 (bird covered by the branches of a shrub, focus on another bird).
Tip of P10 completely white, large mirror on P9. I wouldn´t expect that in YLG.
On the left wing black on P5 is not that solid as I had expected in my 1st posting.
Wolfgang

hi wolfgang,

structure points indeed more towards tatus. i guess you we can exclude michahellis. orbital looks red. eastern baltic HG or hybrid tatus x cach, one of these two possibilities. many baltic argentatus have a p5 mark and red orbitals.

lou

Qiute good numbers of HG:s last few days at Simrishamn, Sweden - on their way northeast to the breeding grounds.
Among "regular" HG:s quite good numbers of yellow-legged HG:s. Normally quite safe to ID by primary pattern, structure etc. Although not extremely rare with birds showing complete black band to p5, most birds show less black in wing-tip and mostly all white tip to p10 and less black to inner web of primaries. Most obvious in less black on p7-8 in flight quite similar to CG. Sometimes you see birds with a larger amount of black, like this presumed female (5k?). Primary pattern like YLG! This one also with quite elongated jizz and profile. This bird was seen separately bu me and Hans and we both believe it is an "odd" argentatus but it would be nice to hear other opinions on the matter /Jörgen Bernsmo

Very nice pic from my favourite gull spot!

As Jörgen say´s, a good enough michahellis primary pattern on this perhaps not fully adult (darkish smudging on the primary coverts), with a broad dark mark on p5 as well as mirror on p10, good michahellis combo. Mirror on p9 different in both wings and seems to be located on the inner web - as in this argentatus by Hans from the same location:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Rtfsyd8tugY/S ... cflyg6.jpg

and another argentatus by Hans:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Rtfsyd8tugY/S ... cflyg2.jpg

Dangerous as it might be, the grey tone on this gull doesn´t stand out much compared to the nearby argentatus and compared to the left argentatus in the second pic og this gull, the iris and orbital ring colour and shape of it is similar! The broad - in front of the eye, orbital ring in michahellis is not fully developed in some michahlleis at this time of year. However, on my monitor the orbital ring colour of both the mentioned gulls has much yellow admixed
As mentioned - the first pic shows a good enough michahellis structure, even if the head looks relatively smallish ( I know the danger judging from this).
Just goes to show how difficult some of these are - at least when judging from pic. Although I could consider michahellis (perhaps best option), but can argentatus be excluded?

JanJ