Yellow-footed Gull-Not so much-Pueblo County

[Josh Bruening]

All,

Gulls-1

Colorado birders-0

As usual, gulls are never straight forward...This is Amar Ayyash's response on the North American Gulls Facebook page:

Although there may be two (or three?) different birds causing some of the confusion here, I think the bird in question, Steven, is a LBBG. There were distant photos of this bird circulating 4-5 days ago that seemed to suggest Yellow-footed from a distance. The most confusing piece for me is the primary molt. Yellow-footed is the more likely to have replaced primaries (p1-p5) in a prealternate molt, but LBBG has been recorded doing this too. Overall, structurally, the bill and wing length are better for Lesser, as pointed out by James Pawlicki.

This opinion has been echoed by several other expert larophiles in recent days.  

Bird is the word!

Josh Bruening

Fort Collins

[Todd Deininger]

Josh,

Are you saying that there is no YFGU in Pueblo and that it was a misidentified LBBG or that the bird it Steven’s photos in not the YFGU and there is/was a YFGU in Pueblo?

Todd Deininger
Longmont, CO

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-- Bruce Lee

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[Josh Bruening]

Todd, et al.,

From what I can tell looking through everyone's photos, including my own, we were all looking at the same bird and there was not at any point a YFGU at Pueblo Reservoir.  This includes Steve R's photos as well.  I included many of these checklists with photos in my email to Amar Ayyash and this is the bird he is calling a LBBG.  This bird is huge, no doubt, but there is a definite size overlap between these two species.  Here are Ayyash's size ranges for the main large gulls present at Pueblo Reservoir (Sibley's uses averages):

LBBG size range at 19"-24"

YFGU size range at 22"-26.5"

CAGU size range at 18"-23"

AHGU size range at 22"-27"

Some people have commented on the bird's size being excluded in the explanation.  If the CAGUs and AHGU were on the smaller size of their respective ranges, it is clear why this gull appeared so huge.  Initial feedback for the gull was promising for YFGU but as better pics came in, the ID was called into question.  

Bird is the word!

Josh Bruening

Fort Collins

Sent from my iPhone

On Jun 24, 2025, at 12:50 PM, Todd Deininger <goldene...@gmail.com> wrote: