Subject: Evil gulls--it has begun
Date: Nov 6 08:18:58 1998
From: Raymond Korpi - rkorpi at csci.clark.edu


Well, the first weird gull of the winter showed up outside my office
today. I suspect it was some sort of Hybrid--either Glaucous X
Glaucous-winged or a Nelson's (Glaucous X Herring) gull. here's a
description (I had no optics, so no eye color was gotten):

Size--slightly smaller than the assorted Glaucous-winged hybrids in the
area (I think there was one bird in the flcok that might be considered
pure G-w; the rest are a motley crew whose parents, as Alan C. would say,
"were of convenient virtue").

Mantle color--A grey that was slightly lighter than the birds around it
but not markedly so. The light here is reasonably good for direct
comparison with a bird similarly oriented, so I was able to get several
looks. The mantle was of uniform color, no blotching or brown feathers,
so I'm pretty sure of the birds age as an adult.

Bill--Not as massive as in a typical G-W or hybrid, but slightly smaller
like a Herring and a slightly greener tone of yellow. Only one bill spot,
red, at the gonydeal angle.

Winter adult head and neck markings--Extremely clean compared to the
typical G-W hybrids. There was no real markings on the face, top of head,
and front of neck. There was some greyish smudging about the back of
the neck that came around to the sides, but it as very light in color and
not noticeable in all lights. The term smudging is used because it really
was more a subtler pattern than the obvious streaking of the typical
G-W's.

Wings: The wings were the same color all the way through (same as
mantle). When folded, the bird showed grey stripes on white primaries.
White was the predominant color on the primaries: the grey stripes were
basically narrower than the white markings. There was some fading of
these markings as well. When the bird flew, the outer edges of the
primaries showed all white: P9 and P10 (bingo) had the most white,
probably extending a third of the way up the feather. When the bird flew
over me at one point, it seemed as if the underside of the primaries had
some dark spots, somewhat like a Thayer's Gull, a light grey
patterning--the wing tip was not translucent (I got this view from above
the bird with a reasonable non-sky background).

Feet: pink.

Sorry I didn't get eye color.

This bird was similar to a bird I had here last winter, and I intend to
keep looking for it today, though as students come on campus, the gulls
tend to move away. Perhaps I'll buy some chum and see what happens.

Ray K
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ray Korpi "The three golden rules are,--never drink
Portland, OR/Vancouver, WA before breakfast, never drink alone, and
rkorpi at csci.clark.edu never drink bad liquor."
President, Oregon Field --Elliott Coues,
Ornithologists _A_Key_to_North_American_Birds_ (1890)
**Inquiries on Oregon birds
always welcome**