Hello islanders et al,
Today, just off Clover Point in Victoria, I spied a large feeding flock of approximately 2500 Mew Gulls just to the southeast of point! Quite an impressive sight as they were no doubt congregating on herring or other fish species. I found it interesting that the flock was almost entirely Mew, with a few Thayer's and 2 California Gulls but very few Glaucous-winged.

Well folks, February and March are the "white gull" months, so keep you eyes out, and...

I was busy scanning the flock looking for kittiwakes or Ring-billed Gull (always surprisingly rare in Victoria) when I was even more pleased to see amidst this flock a gorgeous ADULT ICELAND GULL! This is possibly the same bird photographed on nearby Race Rocks December 23 and again December 27, 2001 via the 'MV Coho' from Port Angeles by different observers. Needless to say, what a nice bird (my fourth for Victoria checklist) on a sunny day!
In short, it was a medium-sized gull with a "straight", short-ish bill with no visible grey or black in wingtips, which appeared translucent. The mantle colour was a soft, silvery grey and it stood out dramatically as a "pale gull". It had stocky wingbeats and seemed less agile keeping aloft than nearby Mew's or Thayer's. The overall impression was a pale, white bird with a pale grey mantle and wings with a nice white trailing edge. It was too far away to distinguish eye colour. The few times it landed it definitely had a long-winged look. This bird is apparently close to full breeding plumage with only a hint of dusty grey on head/neck.

David Allinson
President, Rocky Point Bird Observatory
572 Atkins Road
Victoria, BC
V9B 3A3
Ph. (250)478-0493

Web site: www.islandnet.com/~rpbo
273 species and counting!
Look for a bargraph checklist coming soon.

"Not everything that can be counted counts,
and not everything that counts can be counted."
Albert Einstein