Subject: (Hyperboreus race?) Glaucous Gull, South Delta BC, Jan 20 1997
Date: Jan 21 00:13:10 1998
From: Michael Price - mprice at mindlink.bc.ca


Hi Tweets

On the bus back from Crescent Beach today I was checking out the gull flocks
in the S Delta fields just N of Boundary Bay (yeah, I was the maniac in the
back seat whipping around with his bins--with bins you get about 2.5-3
seconds for checkout time) and saw an unmistakeable Basic 2 *Glaucous Gull*
Larus hyperboreus (1/4 black-tipped bill, overall ghostly white, unmarked
primaries) at the edge of a flock.

But get this: this bird was sort of standing a little by itself. The reason
why? Because this bird was *huge*. It was *clearly* bigger--even from a
speeding bus--than the two closest Glaucous-winged Gulls L. glaucescens
around it. I've seen this giving way to a larger gull before before along
the breakwaters of the Toronto waterfront in winter: an unbroken line about
two km long of roosting Herring Gulls (L. argentatus), then a 20-meter gap,
then one adult Great Black-backed Gull (L. marinus), then a 20-meter gap,
then another two km of Herrings.

So, since birds of the usual Glaucous race, L.h. barrovianus, the western
Arctic race, which shows up here in Vancouver BC tend to be a bit smaller
than the Glaucous-wings, a real squirt compared to the other two Glaucous
races, I'd say there's a really good possibility it was a nominate race
Glaucous from the eastern Arctic, L.h. hyperboreus, second only in size
among North American gulls to the Great Black-backed. It was a monster.

Location: in a field along the S side of Glover Road, about 200-300 m W of
104th Street.

Michael Price A brave world, Sir,
Vancouver BC Canada full of religion, knavery and change;
mprice at mindlink.net we shall shortly see better days.
Aphra Behn (1640-1689)