Gull ID quiz

I’ve done these ID quizzes in the past and have had several people ask for some more. Gulls are a extremely difficult bird to ID as the same gull can go thru up to 4 different molt patterns and look like a different bird in all of them. Gulls also have a a high occurrence of cross breeding between species and don’t always hybridize when they do leading to multiple generations of crossbred birds which can be very challenging.
I will put up 5 gulls and give the answers and give a day for guesses unless someone gets them right.

That's a sea gull

Want to see someone lose their mind, my ornithology professor would if someone called them that. You didn’t even have to be taking his class, he would go out of his way to lecture random people who said that horrible word. LOL

.....can picture little Johnny saying that to his teacher

Sea Gull too

Mine@

Herring gull

California gull.

Not supposed to shoot them, but sometimes an individual one just has to go.

Ok maybe Ocean gull

Friend of mine feeds them hotdogs soaked in alcohol.

Herring
Ring Billed
Mew???
Glaucous (immature)
Glaucous-winged

Ring Bill

The last one looks like a European Herring Gull

Am I allowed to change a guess? lol

I think the last one is a Thayer's the more I look.

Herring
Western
Mew
3rd winter Glaucous
Glaucous winged

now do I have to look in my Gulls of the World since Ido not know where you have traveled Tray

Garbage geese, every one of them.



Owl

Yes!!!

I've heard of people throwing out alka seltzer?

Nope, gulls are from North American, more precisely SD and AK.
I will admit that location does play a big part of the ID.


And you have all but 1 ID’d correctly.

That's why always like the 007 licence the museum had for ID.

photo 1 with the black tip bill is the only red herring, the pink legs and yellow lours

photo 3 the red herring is the grey legs, everything else lines up; dark iris, light ring on bill,grey wings- grey primaries, some flakes

Alaska can have some European gulls especially when the Arctic ocean has been ice free for several years, and several South American gulls migrate north in their winter

Gone for the day so don't put up a spoiler till late this evening

#1. Beach buzzard
#2. Beach buzzard
#3. Beach buzzard
#4. Beach buzzard
#5. Beach buzzard

And Parking lot transient

Herring
Ring-billed
Mew
Glaucous
Iceland

"Dumpster Chickens"!!

I was just looking for the common name, not scientific name.

auto correct

they have dainty bills with no red lower mandibles

Mexican Gulls ( they all look alike )

Some do have a slight red.

Interesting, you make a great point that the bill on the Iceland is daintier.

So I would agree with you that it is a Glaucous-winged Gull. I had to look it up, as we don’t have them here.

Thanks for the correction on the ID.

The middle one Mew Gull
only has one problem in that the photo has gray leg

Delaware they do over winter on the eastern coast below the cold zone

Now if there was a Ivory gull or a Ross Gull, many would flood the area much like they did to the breeding colony in Chuchill Manitoba

there real challenge will be the terns that Tray may pull off one day.

hunttrap247 got it right first. Although technically the Mew gull is now called the Short-billed Gull.
Lots of good discussions on the IDs, thanks everyone who took the time to comment.

There are roughly 30 species of gulls that can be seen in the US, though 6-8 of those are vagrants from other countries that are very rare. I know many people just see them all as “seagulls” as never realize there are many different species.

I thinking Honda Gull Wing

That is what threw me was photo 2 since you are in a area of cross-contanination of Ring bill and California Gulls mixing
more light mantle puts it towards RGG and you would have had to be on the coast for a Western but their mantle is darker

sure glad all those 100's of trips to the dump to count gulls came back to refresh my memory

Guess you should never second guess yourself.

I second guessed because I saw the dark eye and darker tips on the flights started steering me towards a Thayer's.

Other than the Ring Billed and Herring I've never seen these in person much, I'm just a bird nut with a good Field Guide!

Thanks Tray! Lots of fun

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a California with the complete ring on the bill like the one in the picture, immatures will have the black tip but not a ring.
I’ve got some islands around me where both nest and I’ve taken pictures side by side as comparisons but that was with my old camera and they didn’t come out well, may have to spend some time and redo them.

it's a Steven
or Jason