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Re: Horry County Landfill 2-21




On Tue, 22 Feb 2000, Jack Peachey wrote:

> Another curious thing was that the two Lesser Black-backed's we had 
today
> lacked the prominent winter hood (head streaking) of this species in
> winter.  Is it normal that they be in adult summer plumage (at least in the
> head) this early?
> 
> Jack Peachey
> Conway,SC
> ppaw@sccoast.net

I have little experience with Lesser Black-backed, but among the gulls I
*am* most familiar with (from a 5 yr. sojourn on the West Coast), nearly
all Seattle area wintering California Gulls had clean white heads by
mid-January, and many individual larger gulls (Glaucous-winged, Western,
and various mongrel combinations of the two) got their white heads during
January. Individual GWGs that bred locally seemed to aquire summer head
plumage before the winter visitants of the same species (we had a couple
identifiable pairs of GWGs that bred and remained year-round on a nearby
rooftop).

So late February is not early for some gulls to have molted...

Chris Hill
Coastal Carolina University
Conway, SC