More Yellow-legged Gull stuff

I had a really interesting and apposite email from Richard and Giselle, Skokholm Wardens, earlier, which gave a very clear overview of the hybrid situation. They looked at the hybrid possibilities in April and came to the following conclusions:

• A hybrid wouldn't show the combination of bright yellow legs and bill.
• Nor would it show the classic mid-grey mantle of the bird today.
• The red gonys spot extending to the upper mandible is good for YLG.
• A full black band on the 5th primary is likely a good feature.

Rich and Giselle report that two obvious hybrids seen last year both had dirty-coloured bare parts, which were more a straw yellow. I forgot to mention that a scope view showed today's bird had a red orbital ring but of course a LBB hybrid might just have the same. I'm grateful to Rich and Giselle for their timely comments. Richard Dobbins interesting post below also gives an idea of some of the goings on in the past and I'll try to put the whole thing together on a Birdnotes Blog post for reference.

Look yellow!