An American Herring Gull eating a dead fish. Or a Herring Gull or a Smithsonian Gull depending on the source you refer to.
Taken last Sunday morning on a visit to the Lake Huron shoreline in Southampton, Ontario.
The status of various Herring Gull subspecies seems to change almost daily. I have photos of the nominate species and two subspecies from the U.K. Or I did when I captioned the photos. One of the subspecies is now classified as a separate species, the Yellow-legged Gull, by some authorities.
The American Herring Gull is classified as a subspecies by the American Ornithologists’ Union. But lots of references give it the scientific name of Larus smithsonianus which means it should be a separate species. Just to confuse things even more, the British Ornithologists’ Union recognise the American Herring Gull as a separate species.
Very nice! 🙂
Better than what the one i saw was eating a couple of days ago… a discarded pizza! 🙂
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Thanks Tom. A decade ago I photographed two harrassing an Osprey until it dropped its fish on the lakeshore. Both Herring Gulls had a brief pick at the fish before abandoning it.
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