Tweeters,

I had a great day gull watching here in the Vancouver area today, inspite
of the cold weather. After trying down at Boundary Bay for the Pacific
Golden Plover, without success, I headed over to the gull flock at 96th
and Hornby in Delta. There was a nice flock there, probably of a few
hundred birds. The Slaty-backed was in the back of the flock but noticeable
due to its dark back. Eventually I was able to get great looks at the
bird preening and stretching. Compared to a nearby Western Gull, its
back was slightly darker and its structure much more similar to that of
a Herring Gull. The show came to an end as a coyote ran through the flock,
dispersing the gulls. I don't know if anyone saw the Slaty-back in the
afternoon.
I drove off, looking for more gulls and ran into Mark Wynja who had
just spotted a Glaucous Gull in another field. I followed him over and
had great looks at a nearly white bird. I could not see any grey on
the back, just white. I could not see its eye colour, but I am quite
sure that this was a really pale first winter bird rather than a second
winter individual.
I kept scanning the flock, looking for Thayer's Gulls when I noticed
a really pale bird near some Thayer's. Mark and I had just been talking
about the Thayer's/Kumlien's problem, so the bird's appearance was timely.
After looking at it for a while, I mentioned to Mark that if this bird
had been out east no one would hesitate to call it a Kumlien's. Seeing
one here is another situation entirely. The history of Iceland Gull in
Vancouver has been quite controversial. In any case it was an interesting
bird, one which we observed for over an hour and a half. Since there was
a bit of discussion over Iceland Gull on tweeters a while back, I thought
some of you may be interested in a description of this bird.

Here we go: The bird was an adult in winter plumage. The structure was
similar to a Thayer's Gull, medium sized, short billed, and long winged.
The head was rounded and dove-like. The head looked a little puffy and large
for the size of the bird's body. This bird looked a little longer winged
than the few Thayer's in the flock. In jizz it resembled a Mew Gull, but
much larger.
The bill was yellow with a red gonys spot. The eyes could not be seen
clearly, but they were not completely dark. Perhaps the eyes were honey-
coloured. The legs were pink, not brighter than those of Glaucous-winged
Gull besides it. The head, neck, underparts and tail were white. There were
a few streaks left on the head, a few near the eye and some more on the hind
neck. The mantle colour was pale grey, paler than nearby Glaucous-winged
Gulls and Herring Gulls. It was distinctly paler backed than the Thayer's
Gulls in the flock.
There were five primaries visible beyond the tertials, all white tipped.
The white tips were larger than on Thayer's Gulls and Herring Gulls. The
dark markings on the primaries were medium grey, slightly darker than the
mantle. The general pattern shown was similar to that of some nearby
Glaucous-winged Gulls. Compared to Thayer's Gull the wingtips looked
much paler due to the grey rather than black markings and the larger white
tips to the primaries. The white primary tips were asymetrical, with the
trailing half longer and curving back toward the primary base. The outer
primary (p10) was white on at least the outer 5cm, it did not show a
white mirror separate from a white tip. In flight, the grey on the wings
largely disappeared, making the bird look white winged. Upon closer
inspection it could be seen that the grey markings were present as strips
on the leading edge of each primary. From below, the bird looked white
with a little bit of a grey trailing edge on the outer primaries.
After the observation I headed to Iona Island to look at more Thayer's
Gulls. Of the30+ birds there none came close to the appearance of the
bird in question. I have seen lots of Iceland Gulls back east and this
bird fits well within the range of variation shown by wintering Icelands.
I did snap a couple of distant photos which will not likely be all that
useful.

The total for the day was 10 species of gull, if you consider Iceland
a separate species from Thayers. Not a bad day.

Al Jaramillo
jaramill at sfu.ca
Vancouver, B.C.