Lesser Black-backed Gulls - 19 Dec 2018

I drove over to Grace Lake (Vision) in Wayne Co. to look for the Slaty-backed Gull that has been reported the past several days. Skies were sunny and the temperature was a semi-mild 45F so digiscoping was a possibility. 

There were gulls on the pond. Approximately 500 Herring Gulls with another 10-20 Ring-billed Gulls. I found 4 dark-backed gulls that I assumed were Lesser Black-backed Gulls. I spent a good hour digiscoping each one of them in case they might show fleshy-pink legs. They didn't. All legs were yellow, and that cinched it for LBBG.

Watching them bathe and stretch their wings gave a chance to see the underwings and verify leg color. 

I noticed that 3 of the gulls had large red gonydeal expansions with some black subterminal marks on their bills. This tends to give the bill a slight bulbous look, which helps when trying to compare with the Slaty-backs. Their bills tend to be slimmer (more like Iceland Gulls).

I'll have to keep looking. I was happy with the quality of the digiscoped images. All were taken at full magnification (60X) of the scope. The wired remote was necessary to reduce motion-blur.

Grace Lake (Visteon Pond), Wayne, Michigan, US
Dec 19, 2018 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Protocol: Stationary
Checklist Comments:     Sunny, mild 45F; Slaty-backed Gull reported but not refound.
3 species

Ring-billed Gull (Larus delawarensis)  20
Herring Gull (Larus argentatus)  450
Lesser Black-backed Gull (Larus fuscus)  4

View this checklist online at https://ebird.org/checklist/S158309981

This report was generated automatically by eBird v3 (https://ebird.org/home)