This adult Island Gull have darke eyes, how many % of the Island Gull population have dark eyes ?
Or is tihs in fact a very light Kumlien´s Gull ?

Comments ar very welcome.

By judging from this pic Rodmund - the only thing that appear to be somehow strange for glaucoides is the darkish iris. However, we would most probably not be able to identify it as a kumlieni because of the eye colour, nor as a glaucoides because of the pale unmarked wingtip.
To conclude Rodmund - which of these to mentioned features would you trust the most, if you see what I mean?
Great pic from up there!

Hilsen

JanJ

Hi Jan

If this bird was seen i New foundland or Canada it would problable be identyfied as a pale Kumlien´s Gull, but since it is see on the Faroe Island, this is just another not spot on Island Gull, and that raise the question about these gulls we are seeing on the Faroe Island at the moment, a lot of the 2cy, 3cy and 4cy gulls layes in betveen Island Gulls and Kumlien´s Gulls.

After seen over a 1000 of these in betveen gulls at the Faroe Island, i do belive that most of these "so kalled" Kumlien´s Gulls see in Europe at the moment, could in fact just be misidentyfied dark Island Gulls.

The exelent book Gulls by Klaus Malling Olsen and Hans Larsson, states that Island Gulls have a pale yellow iris, and that they have invariably pail iris at this stage compared with Kumliens Gulls. This does not fith with several of the adult birds i have observed this january.

In David Sibley´s North American Bird Guide it says that Island Guls have a pale yellow to brownish iris, (averages paler than in Thayer´s).

So where do these birds come from ?

Do these gulls come from New Foundland and Canada, but are in fact not regesterd as Kumlien´s Gulls over there because they have a difrent wiev at the matter ?

Dave Brown has some interesting thoughts on separating unmarked adults ssp. glaucoides and ssp. kumlieni.

http://birdingnewfoundland.blogspot.com/p/gull-id-articles.html

The mantle colour on this bird does not fit a typical ssp. kumlieni, which is darker.

But the eye is quite dark. But I've seen severel adults with rather dark irises, which did not look like Kumlien's Gulls. So I'd say that ssp. glaucoides can have a rather dark eye as an adult.

So what should we trust the most? The eye colour varies quite a bit on both ssp. glaucoides and kumlieni. But when seen side by side Kumlien's Gulls do tend to be somewhat darker, but again you could probably find overlap there as well.

So I guess that when we're outsite the birds normal range we must be quite humble and let many birds go as unidentified. 'Cause we cannot safely id an adult Kumlien's Gull with no dark markings on the primaries in Western Europe on current knowledge IMO.