This bird appeared on the bayside shoreline south of High Pines between 9:00-10:00am on Feb 10, 2012. It was very cooperative and enabled me to get many photos from which these were selected.

Separating Iceland and Kumlien's Gulls is difficult according to every book I've read including Gulls of North America, Europe and Asia (Olsen, Larsson) and Gulls of the Americas (Howell,Dunn). The Sibley Guide and most books treat Kumlien's as a subspecies of the Iceland, but one book suggests that it might be a hybrid of Iceland Gull and Thayer's Gull. The Kumlien's Gull [kumlieni] is said to breed in Canada while the Iceland Gull [glaucoides] breeds in Greenland. The Howell,Dunn book says (pg 488) that hybridization occurs between Thayer's Gull and Kumlien's Gull/Iceland Gull and "distinguishing between [them] is not possible given current knowledge". Thankfully these photos present no reasons to think hybrid and have been deemed sufficient (I had them verified) for calling this a 1w Kumlien's Gull.

These 10 photos have been selected to show the basis for my conclusion as to species/subspecies and age. Further commentary about specific photos, if any, is provided under the image.