At 12:07 PM 11/15/96 -0800, you wrote:
>Dear Tweeters,
>
>That old poem about "Thirty day hath September, ..." and the counting on
>one's knuckles worked pretty well to help me recall which months had 30
>days in them. Does anyone know of a similar little rhyming ditty, or
>other mnemonic device, to help remember the various leg colors, bill
>colors and dot colors, etc, of the various gulls?
>
>Bob Mauritsen
>rhm at ms.washington.edu
>
Here's one from an eastside birder who only sees gulls a few times a year:

Black wingtips hath the Herring Gull,
Black wingtips hath the California Gull,
Black wingtips hath the Ring-billed Gull,
Black wingtips hath the Mew Gull,
Black wingtips hath the Thayer's Gull,
Black wingtips hath the Western Gull,
Black wingtips hath the Bonaparte's Gull,
Black wingtips hath the Franklin's Gull,
Black wingtips hath the Glaucous-winged-Western Hybrid,
Black wingtips hath the Black-legged Kittiwake.

I would suppose this expresses the feeling of many birders towards gulls.

Denny Granstrand
Yakima, WA