Hi tweets,

Steve Hampton wondered if the very dark gull from Gog-le-hi-te in Tacoma
shown as "gull 4" on my web site might be a southern California (Larus
occidentalis wymani) Western Gull. That subspecies is much darker than the
one in our region (L. o. occidentalis). Here was my answer to him,
hopefully of interest to some of you.

"Steve, I thought of this, too, and I should add that I have seen several
super-dark Westerns on the outer coast over the years that I thought might
be wymani. I consider that a considerably less likely bird around here than
a Slaty-backed, so "better than" rather than "as good as" a Slaty-backed!

But in the original description of wymani (Condor 27 : 163), Dickey & Van
Rossem contrast wymani with occidentalis: "mantle darker . . . and with
the four outer primaries extensively black, without gray wedges on inner
webs." The Gog-le-hi-te bird has a wingtip exactly like all the
occidentalis wings we have in our collection from Washington. We don't have
any from southern California, but I think I recall my photos of wymani in
flight having very dark wings, presumably corresponding to the difference
mentioned above. Thus this bird is *not* wymani, unless you know something
more about it that I don't.

If this difference is consistent, then the presence of wymani north of
southern CA should in fact be confirmable. Is it a regular wanderer to
northern California? What do Californians have to say about this?"

Dennis Paulson, Director phone 253-756-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History fax 253-756-3352
University of Puget Sound e-mail dpaulson at ups.edu
Tacoma, WA 98416
http://www.ups.edu/biology/museum/museum.html