Welcome to the ID Galleries section!
A place to share large sets of photos of some species that we consider could be of interest, since one of the hardest stages in every plumage or moult analysis is the photo collection. Hopefully someone will find them more useful than stored in our dusty hard disks!
Adult American Herring Gulls from Massachusetts, USA
This gallery shows a good selection of adult American Herring Gulls from Massachusetts, USA, taken in January-February. We have included examples of birds with a lot of black in the primaries and lacking the characteristic bayonetes and p10 pattern that are sometimes required to clinch the identification of a Herring Gull in Europe as smithsonianus.
Juvenile Semipalmated Plovers in USA
For those European birders that regularly check flocks of Common Ringed Plover with the hope of finding a Semipalmated among them, this gallery shows a good sample of juvenile Semipalmated Plovers in autumn, so you can get a sense about how a typical bird looks like as well as the variability in the different features.
Steppe Eagles in Oman
The rubbish tip in Raysut, S Oman, used to be one of the highlights in every trip to this amazing country. Big numbers of Eagles gathered together to feed on dead dromedaries and other carcasses, offering unparalleled opportunities to study their plumages and behaviour. Here’s a large series of Steppe Eagle photos, including all age-classes.
Cory’s Shearwaters off Lanzarote
Ever since the Cory’s Shearwater complex got split, there’s been a lot of debate regarding some tricky individuals. Birds with intermediate features have been reported from both breeding and wintering areas and the variation within Cory’s and Scopoli’s seems to be unclear yet. All the birds included in this collection were seen in early September off Lanzarote, Canary Islands, so they are all meant to be Cory’s.