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Brian,
Most of the gulls in northern Utah right now will
be Ring-billed and California but there are also a lot of Herring
Gulls, some Thayer's Gulls and other large gulls are possible too.
Glaucous and Glaucous-winged are found annually, Lesser Black-backed is getting
more regular and just about any large gull is a possibility.
Unfortunately there's nothing simple about
identifying gulls. You need to spend a lot of time studying
gulls to begin to get a feel for what you are looking at so you will feel like
you're lost at first. If you have Sibley he does a pretty good job
with gulls. Peterson and NGS are worthless for gulls. There's a new
gull field guide out this year that's excellent, "Gulls of North America,
Europe and Asia" by Klaus Malling Olsen and Hans Larsen. If you want to
get an idea how tricky it can be to identify gulls take a look at the discussion
taking place on the Frontiers of Identification listserv at http://www.birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/FRID.html.
Follow the links to the gulls in Corpus Christi, TX and read the replies to that
post. Also the Slaty-backed and Vega Gulls (Vega is currently a subspecies
of Herring Gull) from California.
Hope this is helpful.
Cliff
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