These pics were taken on December 20, 2006 in the Coastal Plain near Houston and Galveston, Texas; it has a number of features of Vega Gull:
- underparts mottled brown rather than smooth brown (this bird's intermediate pattern would fit some American Herring Gulls and some Vegas).
- undertail coverts of Old World Type in that the sparse dark bars are clearly narrower than the white bars.
- 2nd-gen scaps mostly pale with double-anchor pattern.
- tertials with variable-width white fringes extending to the visible bases (can be found in some AMHE-like gulls that are probably hybrids with GLGU).
- wingtips and tail band black, not dark brown as with AMHE hybrids with paler-winged species.
- upperwing coverts with lots of white; double white bars extending to the outermost greater secondary coverts.
- black tail band (wide, but well within range for Vega) with basal white barring plus the outer two retrices appear to be unmarked white on the outer base; (Conventional Wisdom is that American Herring Gulls do not have this feature).
- uppertail coverts with white elements slightly larger than dark elements (in American Herring Gull it is at best 50-50, and usually much more dark than white/pale):
