Subject: Re: My Penance, or Today's Clark College Gull Report
Date: Feb 12 16:54:26 1997
From: Christopher Hill - cehill at u.washington.edu




On Wed, 12 Feb 1997, Raymond Korpi wrote:

> Actually, it was a good day to find gulls. About 50 were on the south
> end of campus. 2 were Ring-billed (1 ad. and 1 3rd winter), 2 were adult
> Thayer's, probably 6 to 8 Herring (all adults except for one
> third-winter), and the remainder were Olympic/Columbia/Puget Sound/[your
> personal choice gulls. These are the first ring-bills I've seen on
> campus. The Mews don't seem to be moving through yet (though they are
> regular on the Columbia some 1 mile south). Ray K
>

Hi Ray,

6-8 Herrings out of 50 gulls seems like a huge number. I doubt I've seen
8 Herring Gulls total in the three years I've lived in Cascadia. And
that's out of lots of gulls I've inspected closely - well up into the
thousands or tens of thousands. I'm sure my birding habits, which mostly
keep me near the Puget Sound waterfront, must work against my crossing
paths with Herring Gulls, but what is it, do you think, that attracts them
to your campus in such numbers?

Chris Hill
Everett, WA
cehill at u.washington.edu