A New North American Larus? - The "Giant" Herring Gull
An unfortunate truth of the so-called "gulling community" is that many members of this group have failed to separate the gull-watcher and the bird-watcher. The pursuit of Larus is so utterly far removed from the pedestrian hobby of birding that to conflate the two is an insult to the very nature of this complex family. Alas, this is not the mindset of many self-proclaimed "gullers", who would rather stretch each and every specimen that does not fit neatly into the pre-defined norms of a "species" into its own distinct taxon. These hobbyists, more akin to common twitchers than true Larophiles, seek order where none exists. They impose their sterile taxonomic fetishes upon a lineage that thrives in the gray. And so, few Larus remain unmolested by the eager scalpels of these misguided souls in their attempt to carve structure into a genus that sneers at rigidity. This mentality has given rise to a host of mass delusions, including but not limited to "Tha...