Variation

[Robert Righter]

Hi:

I’m not necessary a “Guller” but I am a believer in variation. There is probably more variation within a species than we like to believe. Darwin was constantly confused by variation and I think that theme is still with us today particularly  obvious within the Large-white-Headed Gull group.

Bob Righter

Denver CO 

[Joe Roller]

The cautionary notes about variation among gulls at Warren Lake and the difficulty of ID'ing every one have been great! 

Thanks for all of them! Let's have more.

Upon reflection could it be that a big part of the problem (my problem too) is "how we learned to ID birds" when we were first bit

by the birding bug and the pitfalls of that method.

As beginners, we'd see a bird and "match" it to a drawing or photo in a field guide. Every bird seemed to be a perfect match for an image in a guide. We still do that! That led us to believe that every bird we saw had an exact  counterpart in a guide. 

As a carry-over from that style, we often still try to ID each bird by finding a match or at least "the closest" match possible. Many birds do have a match, so we are seduced into believing that every individual is represented in the field guides we scrutinize. As we get more experienced and learn from others to be cautious, we take second looks and notice that even common 

birds like Robins show great variation, NOT depicted by any guide. We begin to use question marks

and add to our "BVD" lists (Better View Desired) or "more photos needed" or "Possibly this species"

and we use "Gull sp" more often. 

And that's how we learn - going through the birds, studying each part of each one, ideally with a more experienced birder at our side. There's so much to learn! Especially about gulls. At first they all seem to be "Larus vulgaris", then we learn to sort some of them out. Very satisfying. Like long ago when we learned to tell Greater from Lesser Yellowlegs.

The best advice from several birders on COBirds has been "go up there and look at them" and I agree. Warren Lake is 

an unheated classroom.

Joe Roller, Denver