>On Thu, 5 Jan 1995 STEPNIEWSKI at delphi.com wrote:
>
>> bill structure, brighter pink legs. The eye wasn't right for the majority
>> of Thayer's according to Grant, but he clearly notes there are exceptions
>
>Chris Hill and I saw an adult Thayer's-looking gull in Tacoma, which had
>very light eyes, too. So there do seem to be exceptions to that rule.
>The eyes appeared to be yellow, but we were too far away to see if they
>had small brown 'specks' or not.
>
>____________________________
>Mike Smith
>Univ. of Washington, Seattle
>whimbrel at u.washington.edu

Thayer's very commonly have light eyes, some even entirely pale, much as in
Herring Gulls. Many of the birds at Gog-le-hi-te have light eyes; check
'em out for yourself.

I agree with several who wrote about the difficulty of always being sure of
gull identification, in part because of the almost invariable overlap in
size between females of a species and males of the next-smallest species.
I also agree that the "jizz" of Thayer's is indicative, but I would
strongly caution that it *isn't* diagnostic; there's a real difference
between indicative and distinctive, and "jizz" (the "gentle," round-headed
look of Thayer's and Mew gulls) should never be used as the final
characteristic in identification. My suspicion is that Glaucous-winged x
Herring hybrids really confuse the issue of distinguishing between
Glaucous-winged and Thayer's gulls in this area. Thayer's Gull is
sufficiently common on Northwest coast that knowing how to identify it
isn't a bad idea.

My preoccupation with the sociobiology of birding has prevented me from
participating in this recent discussion about Thayer's Gulls. I'm trying
to shed this preoccupation and get back to birds, honest, but I'm very
pleased with the responses, especially from the women who, it appears, have
just as great a diversity of approaches to birding as the men,
notwithstanding that those average differences still prevail. I guess my
parting statement is that I wouldn't have brought all this up but for the
fact that, with all the changes in our society with regard to the status of
women, I'm not sure I've seen that change in the arena of
birding/ornithology, which I know well, and that's what piqued my
curiosity. The responses have been eye- and brain-opening.

Dennis Paulson phone: (206) 756-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History fax: (206) 756-3352
University of Puget Sound e-mail: dpaulson at ups.edu
Tacoma, WA 98416