Michael -

I'm not sure if your post actually made it to tweeters. It was *not* on the
digests posted on the web, which is how I read it usually, so I am quoting
it here in its entirety.

Anyway, now that you mention it, the only definite Herring gulls I have
seen have been along more coastal areas and Greenlake. However, I don't do
much inland birding, especially in the winter, so most of my winter birding
is closer to the coast.

The NG bird guide shows the Herring gull wintering across Washington from
the northern coastal areas and then inland across the southern half of the
state. In a brief foray into the library I ran across a book summerizing
Christmas Bird Count data on most North American species. I only had a few
minutes and did not get a full reference, but it listed the Herring Gulls
across most of Southeastern Washington. It also listed their western
abundance at about 20% of the areas of greatest abundance (mainly the East
Coast). It made mention of them being found in the area of the Snake and
Columbia river. I'll try to get more complete info.

I noticed a couple of more recent posts listed many California or
Ring-bills, but onlu a couple of Herrings.

Anyone care to share a more first-hand view?

Gulls are a bear to identify, and I certainly meant no criticism by raising
the question. I'm just very interested in gulls, so the counts stood out. I
*try* to identify the juveniles, but don't claim much success.

And thank you for posting your weekly counts.

John Chapman
Seattle, WA
e-mail to: ragweed at igc.org


Michaels message follows:

At 11:34 AM 9/23/99 -0700, Michael Hobbs wrote:
>> Also, interestingly, it looks like there have been Black-Legged Kittiwakes,
>> which are very pelagic gulls, at Marymoor, but not some of the less pelagic
>> species (like Westerns).
>>
>> Any thoughts?
>>
>> John Chapman
>> Seattle, WA
>> e-mail to: ragweed at igc.org
>
>John - you caught an error in my list. The following have also been seen at
>Greenlake, but not at Marymoor:
>
> Black-legged Kittiwake
> Common Tern
> Black Tern
>
>I knew I had to be making mistakes in generating the differences lists.
What I
>did was paste each list into a separate sheet in Excel. Then, switching back
>and forth between sheets, I deleted the common species. It's pretty easy to
>delete something you shouldn't doing that!
>
>As for Herring Gulls, what IS their status in Washington? I have
occasionally
>seen them at the coast, but not often. I know that there had been a lot of
>confusion between Herring Gulls and Glaucous-winged X Western hybrids before
>the hybrid became well known and described.
>
>Is Herring Gull seen at inland sites in Washington? Has it become less
common
>in recent years?
>
>Note also that while I am VERY confident that I have seen the birds on my
>Marymoor list, I make no claim on having detected every species present. I
>often don't go through every gull in the hundreds that are present some
winter
>mornings at Marymoor. I also don't know my immature gulls well at all, and
>don't even TRY to make identifications of them.
>
>== Michael Hobbs
>== Kirkland WA
>== hummer at isomedia.com
>
>