In a message dated 7/19/99 3:37:13 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
sdownes at u.washington.edu writes:

<< Tweets,
Yesterday morning I saw a Wandering Tattler in among other shorebirds at
the usual shorebird spot near the coast guard gate at Ediz Hook. While its
not that uncommon for the county, this is the first Tattler I've seen on
the hook so my question is how often are they reported from there? Also
present was a BL Kittiwake. In light of hearing a couple of glacous gull
reports recently I thought I'd mention an observation from yesterday. I
encountered 3 second year GW Gulls that had primaries worn enough so that
they were pure white, giving a superficial impression of Glacous Gull. The
rest of the bird was GW, it is my experience that these birds can show up
with some regularity if looked for hard enough during this time period.
Glacous is very rare if not unheard of during this period and these worn
GW are probably the likely culprit. Also at the hook I saw my first
Sanderling of the fall migration.

Scott Downes
sdownes at u.washington.edu
Seattle WA >>

In checking my records for the six years that I have been here and
those of others that I know of, I find that TATTLERS have only been reported
from Ediz Hook as far as Clallam County is concerned.
One Spring record: 5-8-99, Roger Hoffman. The earliest records for
returning ones are 7-21 for 2 different years and 7-22 for another so 7-18 is
the earliest arrival date for Clallam that I know of. Most records are in
August and are for one or two individuals with the only larger # being 4 on
7-22-98 seen by Judy Mullally and myself. There is one September record:
9-24-98 by Bob Boekelheide.
I enjoy looking these things up in the computer. Sign of an anal
compulsion I think the Freudian trained psychiatrists would say.
I am trying to keep records for Jefferson and Clallam for future use
and to forward to Russell Rogers and Bill Tweit so if visitors see anything
good here, I would appreciate being informed. I seem to be so busy with the
computer I don't get out birding as much as I would like.
As to GLAUCOUS GULL, I agree with Scott. There are a fair number of
subadult Olympic type gulls in June or July who are really white. When seen
at close range the feathers are very worn and they are obviously bleached.
They are in bad need of a good molt which is probably coming very soon. They
are the same size as a GLAUCOUS-WINGED GULL, do not have the sharply divided
bicolored bill and show none of the brownish flecking that is so frequent in
young GLAUCOUS-WINGED. I would really be utterly convinced of a summer
GLAUCOUS record only by a picture taken by Ruth Sullivan (or of similar
quality).
Bob Norton
norton360 at aol.com