Large young gulls

Most gulls are not too difficult to identify in their adult plumage. As Juveniles, however, it can be a daunting task to figure out whether you’ve got a Black-backed or a Herring gull juvie. I ran into that case today when I photographed what I thought was a juvenile Herring gull. When I tried to verify my first impression with the Merlin app (available free of charge from Cornell Ornithology Lab from the App Store) , it said it was a Lesser black-backed gull. I was certainly in a quandary as to what I should call it.

I had photographed the same bird as it sat on the beach, so I decided to take a closer look at the bird from that vantage point. Merlin did in fact identify that bird was a Herring gull as I had originally thought. Now according to the field guides, a young herring gull’s breast should be pretty blotchy while an immature Lesser black-backed gull has a whiter streaked breast. Looking at the shot of the bird I took today, you can definitely see that there is no streaking on the breast.

I went back into the archives to see if I could see the difference between a young Herring and a young Black-back. It would appear that the most definitive field mark is the streaked breast of the Lesser, seen clearly in this shot. So, my first impression was the correct one. (but i really had to look deeper to make sure of the identification).

Tech Tip - Cataloging your images is an invaluable way to help you go back in time and check previous work. What date did you create a memorable image? What settings were you using when you got that “impossible” shot? Or in my case today…What field marks did I use to make the correct identification? My favorite means of keeping track of my photos from decades ago to the present day is LightRoom Classic. In the YouTube video linked to the action button below, one of my favorite Photo “gurus”, Hudson Henry, goes into some detail on the how’s and why’s of organizing your images. While several years old, the video is a valuable instructional tool about this often overlooked aspect of digital photography.