Identifying Gulls, and Squawking Gulls in My Collage for LMAC #169

Cawing Gulls in a Field

The picture below is the LMAC Collage Contest #169 template from which my gull GIF was created. Every week, @shaka offers the LMAC community a template.

Template From @shaka

Here is the Bird That Served as Model for My Cawing Gulls

Credit: @agmoore From LIL, the LMAC Image Library

I began to make the collage by breaking up the bridge in the template. I removed almost all the elements, including support structures.

I played around with what was left and came up with this

Which became this

Which transformed into this

I was ready now to give my complaining gull a new beak, made from the bridge in the template photo.

Transformation complete, I placed the gulls, with exaggerated beaks, in the scene.

Now I was prepared to create the first frame of my GIF.

My picture of the cawing gull was taken at Tobay Beach, Nassau County NY, in August of 2022. This bird would put its head down and then raise it again in a loud squawk. Here's the bird with its head in the down posture.

Credit: @agmoore LIL

Gulls are quite common at the beach and it seems they are difficult to identify. However, the website Science Appliance offers a key to identifying gulls: eye color, leg color, color of primary wing feathers, bill color and presence or absence of a gonys spot. I looked at pictures of different gulls and it seems the bird in my picture might be a ring-billed gull (Larus delawarensis).

Another Picture I Snapped That Day of a Ring-billed Gull

@agmoore LIL

Here's a picture from Wikipedia of a bird, identified as a ring-billed gull, that looks a lot like those in my pictures.

Neitherday at English Wikipedia. Used under CC 1.2 license of higher

Besides the light-colored head, pale legs, absence of a gonys spot and light eye, this bird has a distinctive black ring around its bill.

There is one difference between the ring-billed gull in the Wikipedia picture and the gull in my picture: Mine has some colored feathers on its head. According to the website All About Birds, the colored feathers on my bird's head signify that this is a non-breeding adult.

Breeding Adult Ring-billed Gull From Wikipedia

Credit: Rhododendrites Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license

Non Breeding Ring-Billed Gull From Wikipedia

Credit: Charles Homler d/b/a FocusOnWildlife Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license

I found a Youtube video where the sound of this (apparently adult breeding) ring-billed gull cawing is recorded:

Here is another type of gull I saw on the beach that day which, at first glance (to me) looked similar to the ring-billed. But, using the identification key described above, obviously this is another kind of bird. Its feathers are darker. Its beak does not have a ring, but does have a gonys spot. This seems to be a great black-backed gull (Larus marinus).

@agmoore

Here is a picture of a great black-backed gull, from Wikimedia Commons

Sharp Photography, sharpphotography.co.uk. Used under creative commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license

Here is another shot I took of what I believe to be a black-backed gull. The leg color of the bird in this photo seems to be even more similar to the Wikimedia image and the yellow ring around the eye is more defined.

@agmoore

I did snap a picture of another gull that looked significantly different from the ring-billed and the great black-backed gull. However, it seems this bird is a juvenile black-backed gull, in its 'first winter'. Here you see the adult and juvenile standing side by side.

@agmoore

And here is a picture of a first winter black backed gull from Wikipedia.

Credit: Tony Will. Used under CC 2.5 license

A description of the juvenile great black-backed gull (from All About Birds):... pale-headed, crisply checkered dark and white, and usually show a fully black bill through the first winter. The association between the young and adult gull in the photo is likely coincidental. According to the Audubon.org Field Guide, young black-backed gulls become independent after they are about two months old.

This is my second collage for Round #169 of the LMAC Contest. Since I don't enter the contest, I thought I'd try my hand again and take a very different perspective on the template photo. This time I wrote a little science blog to go with the collage.

Please check out the finalists #169. The announcement was posted this morning and you will be able to vote for your favorites throughout the day!

Tomorrow we begin a new round in the LMAC collage contest. Stop by and join in the fun.

Some sources used in writing this blog:
https://scienceappliance.org/2018/03/08/guide-to-gulls/
http://webdesigner56789.blogspot.com/2013/02/gonys.html
http://www.anythinglarus.com/2016/06/whats-that-on-your-bill.html
https://birdwatchinghq.com/gulls-in-the-united-states/
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Ring-billed_Gull/id
www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcm5fhRwIac
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Lesser_Black-backed_Gull/id
https://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/great-black-backed-gull