>From Russell Rogers, Seattle WA, rrogers at halcyon.com

Ya-hoo!!! All of those visits to the point finally paid off!

This mourning at 10:30 AM, I was watching for birds off of Alki Point.
After about 10 minutes of looking I noticed a group of gulls to the
north-northeast of the light house. There were about 15 or so Bonaparte's
Gulls feeding on some unknown item below the surface. As I scanned I
could see gulls coming in from all points of the sound. Within 5 to 10
minutes the gull flock numbered about 150 birds with 80-100 being
Bonaparte's Gulls. I thought that this would be as good a chance as any
to pick out a Little Gull. It didn't take long before I noticed a bird
that seemed slightly larger than the other Bonaparte's Gulls. It also had
a somewhat slower or heavier wing beat to its flight pattern. Upon zeroing
in on this I could immediately make make out the darker primaries on the
underside of the wing. The upper wing pattern looked the same as the
Bonaparte's; white leading edge with a little bit of a black outline
around it. The bird was a little to far away to be able to see the color
of the bill. By the way it was about 150 to 200 yards away. I watched it
flutter around for about 10 minutes until it put down on the surface of
the water, where it sat for only a minute or so. It then flew up and
around the east side of the point and out of sight. By now the flock of
gulls was starting to break up. I got in my van and drove around to Alki
Beach to try to relocate the bird. I looked for about 15-20 minutes with
out any luck.

Good luck to any one that goes an looks for this bird.

Russell Rogers
4510 Glenn Way SW
Seattle, WA 98116
(206) 935-6280
rrogers at halcyon.com