Today my dad and I went birding to see the Iceland gull at the Simpson Pulp
Mill parking lot. We got there around 2:00 PM and immediately saw 4 people
that were looking at a gull out in the water. We took a look and saw that it
was the ICELAND GULL! We spent a long while watching this rare life bird.
When we tried to feed it some raisin bread it ignored it. Someone said that
it had been fed salmon and wasn't hungry! We got some great looks though my
scope and then someone noticed a PEREGRINE FALCON way up on the top of the
Simpson Mill. Out on the Puyallup River we located 2 female BARROW'S
GOLDENEYE and 1 male COMMON GOLDENEYE. There were also loads of MALLARDS,
CANADA GEESE, and THAYER'S and GLAUCOUS-WINGED GULLS. "This is too easy" we
were thinking and needed a bit more of a challenge. So we jumped into the car
and headed to the Gog-Le-Hi-Ti Wetlands. But before we left I took a quick
look at he nearby Canada Geese. They were mostly the large canadensis form,
but at least 2 of them may have been hutchinsii.
At the Gog I did a scan of the roof tops and started walking the trail.
There were a few SONG SPARROWS in the stickers. Also there was a RUBY-CROWNED
KINGLET in the Blackberries. When I got to the first pond most of the ducks
were sleeping back in the reeds and cattails, but there were still some
MALLARDS, 1 AMERICAN WIGEON, some GREEN-WINGED TEAL, 4 COMMON MERGANSERS, and
a few CANADA GEESE that were still awake. That's when most of the songbirds
came out. When I was heading back to the car lots of HOUSE FINCHES flew over.
There were tons and tons of SONG SPARROWS and RUBY-CROWNED KINGLETS in the
bushes all around. I scanned through the gulls when I got to them. They were
mostly THAYER'S and GLAUCOUS-WINGED GULLS, with a few WESTERNS, and possibly
a few hybrids of some sort, but I didn't find the Slaty-backed Gull. Please
note I am very new to gulls and I could have scanned over another species or
two. While I was scanning the gulls I saw a little bird in a small tree close
by out of the corner of my eye, flycatching. Without my scope I would have
never guessed what it was, but with it I saw that it was a new year bird; a
YELLOW-RUMPED "Audubon's" WARBLER in winter plumage. After it flew away a man
walked over a said that he had seen an Orange-crowned Warbler, so I went back
on the trail to try to find it, with no success.
When I got back to the truck dad was feeding the gulls some bread. A
first winter GLAUCOUS GULL was attracted to the food and sat on a nearby
parked semi-truck providing great looks at my second life bird of the trip.
After that my three-year old brother was very tired so we headed home. On our
way we saw HUNDREDS and HUNDREDS of crows heading for there roosts for the
night. I also noticed that on a telephone wire going across the Puyallup
River there were over 10 DOUBLE-CRESTED CORMORANTS sleeping on it! I had no
idea that they could even sit on telephone wires! Good Luck and 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