ID please

I am calling this a greater black-backed gull. Photographed at Tybee Island, GA today (11/27/09)

I can't dispute your ID

You got it Phil. Normally these guys are easy to judge because they are so much larger than all the other gulls but since there is nothing for scale here that is tricky. The very dark mantle (back) makes it either a Greater or Lesser Black-backed Gull and since the Mantle is pretty much the same darkness as the primaries, I call it a Greater (Lesser's mantle would be lighter than the primaries).

Nice light by the way.

For the record, it is Great Black-backed Gull, not Greater. "Greater" is a label that seems to have entered the literature around 1980 and was used in the Peterson guide of that time when there was some movement to make it "symmetric" with Lesser Black-blacked Gull. All my other field guides before and after the Peterson call Larus marinus "Great Black-backed Gull."

Good point Richard! Thanks!

Turkey? Sorry couldn't resist some seasonal "humor?"

These (gulls, not turkeys) are found in Europe too.

I submit, in the spirit of rules of binomial nomenclature for animals (ICZN, 1999), That the only truly correct name for this species is " Larus marinus". All else is more or less a matter of common agreement. While there is consistency in the broader English naming by experts, even there a certain dichotomy can be found, tied more to location than differences in species. The adjective "greater" is by definition correct in common usage, because there is a lesser, smaller but quite similar gull. As a proper name, e.g., "Great" falls a bit short of being proper to the same degree that say "Thomas Aquinas" does. It is in fact less descriptive than greater, as greater relates to a place in the scale of things. I wouldn't call it symmetrical, but I would say it is more descriptive of the larger of the Black-backed gulls. While Richard is correct in his call, there is no logic involved; just the notion that we all agree, therefore it must be so.

Check-list of North American Birds

The Check-list of North American birds is the official source on the taxonomy of birds found in North and Middle America, including adjacent islands. This list is produced by the North American Classification Committee (NACC), an official committee of the American Ornithologists' Union.

More information on the North American Classification Committee, including current members, general philosophy, operating procedures, and subspecies treatment can be found on the NACC committee page.

The official source

I ask, in all ignorance, do the English names for North and Middle America, as given from the NACC, have the same universal acceptance as the latin names? This would be at odds with the naming of plant taxa and other animal taxa. If so, why so?

Over the years there has been a lot of effort put into standardizing English names for the birds of North America, and the list maintained by the AOU is regarded as the official list. It is what is followed by every English language field guide. There have been a few times field guide authors have been caught be anticipated name changes that were in the works as their books went to press: Peterson's "greater" Black-blacked Gull; Sibley's "northern" Caracara come to mind.

Such changes haven't always been easy to accept. what we now know as the Common Moorhen used to be the Common Gallinule, until the U.S. changed the name to match that of Great Britain who named the species first.

I recall a lot of heated discussion over the movement to create standard English names for birds. Some people argued that this duplicated the purpose of the Latin binomials; others pointed out the value of standardized names to facilitate communication and reduce confusion.