Date: Fri, 6 Sep 2002 11:59:22 EDT Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Paul O'Brien Subject: Re: RFI Kelp Gull status MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I don't want to appear to be dumping on anyone here but I would prefer not to get into a long debate about the origin of the Kelp Gull right now, since this is one of the key issues that the Records Committee is grappling with. Also, it is premature to say that anybody has voted to reject the record, since the review is on-going and the votes are not in yet. It actually is improper to hash this out in public at this time because the reviewers are supposed to make their judgements based on reading the same material. The record is sent from one member of the committee to the next and takes time to circulate. If some reviewers have access to additional reading matter, the vote becomes suspect. So please be patient. What I can tell you is that Kelp Gulls have been held in several Sea World collections around the country, and that those birds all derived from eggs collected from the Antarctic population, which can be differentiated from Shrimpy by the pattern of windows and tongues on the primaries. However, at least one other collection existed over 30 years ago, about which we have no information at present. The Louisiana colony, by the way, is not just hybrids, but also includes pure-bred (is that the right term?) Kelp Gulls, one of which was collected and was the specimen ABA reviewed and accepted. So the MD/DC Records Committee would appreciate a moratorium on Kelp Gull origin discussions pending the completion of the review. Besides, a birder's list is whatever one decides it should be. Since ABA has accepted Kelp Gull, birders are free to tick it wherever they find and identify it (go ahead, read the rules carefully). In any case, we should be grateful that we can see and enjoy such an interesting gull. Birding should be fun. Paul O'Brien Rockville, Mont. Co., MD pobrien776@aol.com ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================