At 04:11 AM 3/27/2001, you wrote:
>I'm trying to identify a bird I saw today on the beach on the west side of
>Whidbey Island.
>
>This bird would fly from the driftwood down to the rocky beach.

Most birds I have seen flying from the driftwood to the rocky beach have
been gulls.

>
>It was was a uniform darkish brown all over, with perhaps a little white
>under the tail feathers. It had a pencil line wing bar, like how Kaufman
>portrays a Townsend's Solitaire. And it had a very distinctive eye ring.

Immature Herring, Western, and Thayer's Gulls might be considered to be
darkish brown. Many have a hint of wing bars, thought I will admit most are
larger than Townsend's Solitaires. The evident size difference between
gulls and solitaires might be due to the observer's distance from the bird.
The further away a person gets, the smaller a gull appears. The eye-ring
might have been caused by the sun, or the lack of sun, whichever the case
may be.

>And it seemed to have both a longish tail, and longish wings, kind of like a
>Mountain bluebird.

While gulls don't have longish tails, they do have longish wings. The
larger ones have quite long wings. Gulls, though, especially the brownish
ones, are much larger than bluebirds.

>I assumed I had seen an American Pipit. But even the unstreaked Pipit, as
>shown in the Sibley guide, does not have the all over uniform darkish brown
>of the bird I saw. Nor does the Pipit seem to have the VERY distinctive eye
>ring of the bird I saw.

If the bird was unstreaked, it definately was a gull. I don't recall ever
seening a streaked gull. If you are in need of reading glasses, you might
be holding the Sibley at arms-length. At that distance, the size difference
between the gulls and pipits in the book might be confusing. The eye-ring
is a little difficult to explain but I am sure that others might be able to
help us with that.

>The bird I saw could be considered somewhat similar to the Townsend's
>Solitaire, the drab winged adult, as portrayed by Sibley. But that bird is
>clearly gray, and the one I saw today was clearly a uniform darkish brown.
>
>Would appreciate your thoughts. R/Steve Rothboeck, Coupeville, WA

Your bird almost certainly was a gull. It probably was an immature gull,
because of the brownish coloration. Remember, if it had had black wingtips,
it for sure would have been an adult gull.

Denny Granstrand
Yakima, WA
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* * * * * * * * * * *
* Denny Granstrand *
* Yakima, WA *
* osprey at nwinfo.net *
* * * * * * * * * * *