A Puzzling Juvenile Gull

Provincetown, Massachusetts - 2 November 2008

created by Blair Nikula

This juvenile gull was among a large aggregation of gulls at Herring Cove in Provincetown on 2 November 2008.  The pale, checkered appearance is suggestive of Lesser Black-backed, Yellow-legged, or European Herring gulls, but various characters seem at odds with any of those three species. It was the size of a very small Herring Gull. All images were taken with a Canon 40D and Canon 100-400mm IS lens.