Saturday Feb 18, 2012 Ken Brown led a small group of 5 ABC birders, Brian, David, Dianne, and me on a local gull trip, and here is a rundown of the morning part of the trip.  I had to leave at midday unexpectedly so I’ll ask Dianne or Ken to make a comment to outline the afternoon birds  We birded two general areas, the Hylebos waterfront off Marine View Drive, and the Gog-li-hi-te wetlands area in order to study gulls.  It’s a good thing we were looking for gulls, because nearly every other bird in their right mind was taking cover from the high winds and precipitation, both rain and hail.

At the waterway log booms we had good looks at Mew Gulls, a few Glaucous-winged and Olympic Gulls (GW-Western Hybrids), and a couple of Western Gulls.  Saw all three cormorants, two Pacific Loons, Bald Eagles, and a pair of courting Red-tailed Hawks.

Off to the wetlands, and there we found lots of gulls, at least a thousand, maybe more in total. At the mouth of the Puyallup river we had at least one Thayer’s gull along with the GW/Western blends.  Several Mew gulls too.  Back on the rooftops at the Gog-li-hi-tee area on the rooftops and trailers around the rendering plants the flocks were thick. We found both a Herring Gull and several  Thayers gulls there.

The best viewing of the day though was at the back mitigation pond where on the mud and in the shallow water were a few hundred loafing gulls.  In the near ground were Mew gulls in all three Feb. plumages, i.e. Juvenile (B1), B2 and Adult, with varying degrees of early PA molt. Lots of GW gulls and hybrids of all 4 plumages and best of all nice looks at Thayer’s gulls both adult and juvenile, and adult Herring gulls. We also found one gull that we think is either a Glaucous hybrid or Glaucous gull.  We got only suboptimal photos.  We had a few California gulls too. Gulls give a great opportunity to study and understand molt, and we worked that angle with Ken’s help all morning. So for the day we had GW, Western, Mew, California, Thayers and Herring gulls, missed Ringed-bill giving us 6 of the expected 7 for the day, with a possible 7th if we figure out the mystery gull was a Glaucous.

Here is a photo by Diane, and I’ll try to get some of mine in order to put up soon.  See you Thursday.

Herring Gull 2-18-12 by Dianne Y-Q.

Gull ? Glaucous from Gog-li-hi-tee 2-18-2012

Ed