Re: [Maine-birds] Large (14") seabird feather- Roque Bluffs

Another great reference that I use is the book, "Bird Feathers" by S. David Scott and Casey McFarland. 

Don Lima

Ellsworth, ME

On Oct 21, 2015, at 10:19 PM, Louis Bevier <lrbevier@colby.edu> wrote:

Carol,

Your feather is one of the outer primaries from the left wing of a Herring Gull. I'd guess it is the 8th or 9th primary, and the white tip has worn off because this is a worn, year-old primary. These birds are finishing their primary molt now, and that's probably a feather that has dropped (could have in the past few weeks). It's probably from a sub-adult bird, if that's p9 (adults have a small subterminal mirror on that feather). You can compare to an adult here, where p9 is second from the left and just over 14" long: http://www.fws.gov/lab/featheratlas/feather.php?Bird=HERG_primary_adult_bluebk

The pattern of gray and black is somewhat variable, and its hard to tell if your feather isn't p8. It's not the feather of a gannet, but that sounds like what you saw earlier.

Kind regards,

Louis

Fairfield

--
Maine birds mailing list
maine-birds@googlegroups.com
http://groups.google.com/group/maine-birds
https://sites.google.com/site/birding207
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Maine birds" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to maine-birds+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.