Only if you use the AOU Checklist, which is about to be changed once again with Edition #7, comming out this year.
I go by the International Code for Zoological Nomenclature, the world-wide accepted authority on scientific naming.
And in actuality, it appears we may both be in error on one point. According to thier website, the State Bird of Utah is the California Gull (Larus californicus). I stand corrected.
Another factor that compounds the problem is that Gulls freely and enthusiastically interbreed with each other whenever their ranges coincide. So it’s difficult to say if similar species are actually one species, or hybrids, or what. Such was the case of the Whistling Swan, and many others.
One more reason why believe scientific issues should be handled by scientists, and not politicians. Half the time, we can’t even agree amongst ourselves what’s going on!
Oh well…if nothing else, it keeps us all mentally on our toes!
I don’t know if anyone will appreciate this or not but here goes anyway…when we were kids we used to go to the beach with our parents and us boys would see how much trouble we could get into of course. Well, one day we caught a seagull. It wasn’t that hard to do really…we were fishing with sardines and we noticed that when we cast out into the rips where are parents suggest we fish that the seagulls would chase the bait, hook and sinker right to the water. We got the bright idea that if we cast in higher arcs that the seagulls might take the bait. What actually happened was that one got tangled in the line then crashed into the water.
We reeled the seagull in and had a heck of a time untangling it for all it’s flapping about and screeching and trying to peck us. We calmed it down with some sardines and what was really funny was that once untangled it wouldn’t leave. We made a kind of shelter for it out of driftwood and put a little bed of seaweed in there and some more sardines. The seagull went in there and just pretty much hung out all day.
When it came time to go home and we started gathering up rods and reels then began walking to our car where our parents were blowing the horn and waving their arms as in ‘get over here now, we’re leaving’. Well, the seagull had apparently grown attached to us if that’s at all possible and walked along with us and when the seagull saw that we were putting things in the car then getting in ourselves, he just sorta hopped in.
I guess we were breaking the law but honest, we din’t tell the seagull to get in the car. Back at the house he hopped out once we got out of the car and just hung around in the yard. Once it was plain that he wasn’t leaving, we made a shelter similar to the one we’d made for him at the beach but we din’t have any seaweed so we thought it over and decided my Dad’s Pendelton shirts would make a good nest. Well, we’d hike over to the bay most weekend days and fish and Jonathan Livingston (that’s what we named him) just walked along with us and any bullheads we caught, he’d get those, that plus his diet of grasshoppers and snails in the yard seemed to keep him in good health.
Unbeknowst to us kids, the reason he walked everywhere was because his wing was hurt. Well, after eating the fish we’d catch for him plus the hoppers and snails, I guess his wing mended because one day Jonathan Livingston was gone. We’d noticed him practicing kind of flying a little in the backyard sort of like baby birds do when they’re getting ready to leave the nest.
When we realized he was gone, we were at once saddened and happy at the same time but realized that Jonathan Livingston Seagull had to go back to his kind. We’ll never forget you Jonathan.