Subject: Redheads and Wood Ducks....Gulls
Date: Jan 8 20:46:14 2002
From: Kelly Mcallister - mcallkrm at dfw.wa.gov


It's midwinter waterfowl survey week for biologists all over North America. I surveyed my
key areas in Thurston County today (with a few still to be done). There were three Redheads
on Pattison Lake as well as a male Eurasian Wigeon and a male Wood Duck. I was surprised to
find a Wood Duck on Long Lake as well and, even more surprising, 18 Wood Ducks on Hicks Lake.
I'll have to look over past midwinter waterfowl survey records for south Puget Sound
counties to see how unusual this is. In the 4 years that I have been doing these surveys, this
is the most Wood Ducks and the most locations with Wood Ducks.

I got back some nice slides of the Bohemian Waxwing from Mud Bay and gulls from Perry Creek.
If I can figure out whether or not I have some free web site service associated with my
AT&T Broadband Internet service, maybe I'll put some photos on the web and see if I can
get some thoughts on the identity of a gull or two. I've been reading Kenn Kaufman's
discussion of gull identification in the Advanced Birding book in the Peterson's Field Guide
series (thanks to Keith Brady for the recommendation) and it's conceivable that some day
I'll be able to accurately distinguish a Herring Gull from a Thayer's Gull from a hybrid.
I 've been to Goglehite wetland in Tacoma twice in the past couple of weeks and looked at quite
a few of what I believe were Thayer's gulls. Should be getting some good pictures back of
some of them as well.

Kelly McAllister
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife
Olympia, Washington
Reply to: mcallkrm at dfw.wa.gov