Thank you to everybody who has given me feedback on the Schoolhouse Pond
gull.  After doing a bit of searching, I found a great web site with dozens
of pictures of 1st winter/year Slaty-backed Gulls.  Most of the photos were
taken from Japan, and a great variety of gulls are shown, in varying
degrees of wear and molt.  The site is:

http://www.martinreid.com/sbguinx.html

There are some photos on the site that are a very similar to Jim's photos.
Note particularly the January 22, 1999 photos from Hokkaido, which is a
worn, fairly light, whitish gull.

Fred Shaffer
Patuxent MOS