Hello, everyone! Yesterday and today my dad, my brother Nick (three yrs old),
and I did some birding in Tacoma, off of Ruston Way at Commencement Bay. If
you would like more detailed directions you can e-mail me offlist for them.
Yesterday when we arrived, we found 2 possible CALIFORNIA GULLS, along with
many hybrids of some sort. Hundreds if not thousands of WESTERN GREBES (I
didn't find a Clark's Grebe in with them) were far out in the bay. While
scanning the bay we found some BARROW'S GOLDENEYES. In with some gulls my dad
spotted "a black one." I was wondering what kind of hybrid young winter bird
it could be when he said it was flying this way. A rather small looking dark
gull flew right in front of us on buoyant wings. It flew around in front of
us for a while then flew back to some wooden pilings sticking out of the
water that it was sitting on. One of the hybrid type gulls dive-bombed it and
this bird dodged out of the way very swiftly. It was much more agile than the
other gulls. It landed on one of the pilings and we hopped into the truck and
drove to that area.
I walked out onto the dock and got great scope looks at this 1st winter
HEERMAN'S GULL. It was standing on one foot next to a hybrid gull and I could
tell that it had a slimmer bill and legs than the other gulls. The bill was
two-toned. While I was walking back to the truck the gull flew to somebody
throwing bread for the gulls. When I got back to my dad he said that he saw
an albino loon swim past us and it dove just in front of us. He told me to
stay here and look for the loon while he tries to get a picture of the
Heerman's. His close up pictures that he got of it can be seen at this
webpage:
http://www.hometown.aol.com/birdking88/heer-gull.html
I did see the white loon, and I found that it was an ALBINO COMMON LOON in my
scope, but it was too far away for any good pictures. The next day (today) we
went to the Slater Museum and Dr. Dennis Paulson showed us their amazing
collection of bird specimens. Even though it was raining we decided to brave
it and go look for the gull and loon. When we arrived at the place, we found
the albino Common Loon once again, still pretty far out there. We stayed
there for a while, not finding the Heerman's until the ghostly loon didn't
come up. Then we drove once again up the street where the Heerman's was the
other day. We were very cold and very wet. We found the albino loon again,
very close to a dock. We went out on the dock and my dad got some fairly
close-up pictures that I will scan on when they get developed. Also of note
out there was a Marbled-type Murrelet sp., a Brant's Cormorant, and some
Pigeon Guillemots, all in beautiful breeding plumage. We went up the road a
bit farther and found the 1st winter HEERMAN'S GULL on the same post it was
the previous day. We threw some bread to the gulls and it was obviously not
hungry. All said, I got 3 new year birds out of the trip, and a state bird.
Good Birding!

Visit my birding website at:
http://hometown.aol.com/birdking88/index.html

Birdking88 at aol.com
Charlie W. Wright
Sumner, WA
Age 11