I have some bad news for you, but it's a common error most gull
novices make here on the Columbia River. You probably saw no
Herring Gulls (I also spent the weekend going through gulls and
only saw one). What you are seeing are Western x G-W Gull hybrids.
The center of the zone of integration is smack dab on the Columbia/
Wilapa Bay system.

Gull ID is a tough skill to build and trying it on your own is
a brave and commendable thing. I've been at it for 27 years and
still come upon birds I let go as Northern Pink-footed Gull.

>
>Dear Tweeters:
>
>We spent a long weekend exploring the birds of the coast from Seaside to
>Raymond, and based in Astoria, Oregon. We enjoyed the best birding day
>on Saturday in Seaside and closed a gapping whole in our lifelist: black
>scoter. Also enjoyed seeing three kinds of grebes, other scoters,
>sandpipers, dunlin, varied thrushes, spotted towhee, hermit thrushes,
>and lots more -- about 40 species total.
>
>We also put in some serious hours of gull study. We wanted to get more
>comfortable with things like bill and head shape, and leg, eye, mantle,
>and primaries colors, etc. All in all, I think we spent about 7 hours
>picking though every adult in every flock we saw, before giving the
>younger gulls a glance, too. We even fed bread a couple of times to
>bring them in close. The best spots were at big piles of fresh oyster
>shells. We were kind of disappointed that we only found three species
>to practice on -- ring-billed, glaucous-winged, and herring. We were
>hoping we'd see something obviously "different" to try our fledgling
>skills on, like common or Thayers. I'm pretty sure we saw some Westerns,
>but none in a suitable study setting.
>
>It was great to get out and concentrate on just birding for several
>days, just the two of us. Well, okay, it wasn't all birding: we went to
>"Titanic" in Astoria.
>
>Kristi and Tom Streiffert
>Coulee Dam, WA
>
>
>
>

--
*********************************
* Mike Patterson, Astoria, OR *
* mpatters at orednet.org *
http://www.pacifier.com/~mpatters