Here are more than fifty first-cycle Herring
Gulls (Larus argentatus argenteus/argentatus) that were
photographed at Peterhead, northeast Scotland, between February 25 - 28, 2009 (a few were on March 01) during the 9th International Gull Meeting. I was informed by the local gullers than only a few nominate argentatus winter in NE Scotland - but I suspect that some argentatus from further south (e.g. they are the majority of wintering HERGs in Oxfordshire) had started to move north as I feel that more than just a few birds were nominate argentatus rather than the resident argenteus. It was telling to me that some very experienced British and Scandinavian gullers were loathe to put a firm subspecific ID to any individual HERG we saw...
Note: these birds were selected by me from about eighty individuals that I photographed; I chose birds that showed the range of variation I saw, so those left out fell somewhere in-between the range of features shown here. Look especially at the degree of variation in the tail pattern, underparts markings, bill color, wing covert pattern, and inner primary pattern:
Each bird is numbered (nn), corresponding to the name of the .jpg files (HEGUGBnna.jpg).
The first ten birds (numbers 01 - 10).
The second ten birds (numbers 11 - 20).
The third ten birds (numbers 21 - 30).
The fourth ten birds (numbers 31 - 40).
The fifth ten birds (numbers 41 - 50).