Hi Tweets,

Friday at 3:45pm, Bruce LaBar and I located the Black-tailed Gull that
Charlie Wright found earlier in the week at North Cove. The bird was on
the west side of the creek (away from the parking lot) and was working in
the seaweed on the incoming tide. We had scanned earlier in the day for a
couple of hours as the tide changed with another couple from Oregon with no
success. The birds were in a more compact group and closer with the higher
tide. We approached to within 60 feet with little reaction from the gulls.
Of course, a 20 mph on-shore wind may have been of some help in that
department. The stream is shallow enough to wade with boots or you may be
able to get around further along the highway.

The bird was first spotted by scanning the California Gulls and looking for
one smaller and who's mantle was a darker yet shade of gray. When feeding
with the Heerman's Gulls, the overall size of the body and the bill length
were very similar, although the bill may have been a tad thinner. The bird
was easiest to relocate, once the head pattern was learned. One big caveat
- the tail.

Bill: Bright yellow, final 1/3 black and the terminus was bright red
Legs: Almost as bright yellow as the beak.
Eye: Iris yellow
Mantle: darker gray than California Gull
Neck through vent: white
Wings: Longest primaries all dark, one white spot at end of an inner
primary on right side & three white spots at the end of some inner
primaries on the left side. The trailing edge of the secondaries looked
quite worn and made a worn, white 45 degree angle on the wing
Head: A soft brown-gray (smokey-gray) streaking pattern started just behind
the eye on the forehead and work down and around to the nape of the neck,
split from the middle of the face across the face under the eye (but not to
the eye) and followed like a necklace around the bottom of the head, but
stopped before the throat.

Tail: Bruce and I did not see a nice black tail, in spite of our best
efforts. The bird remained sideways to us every time it hopped/flew to the
next seaweed clump. The edge of the tail was definitely white. A couple
of times I could see a dark smudge just off the tail tip before it set down
again. With a Swarovski AT-80 spotting scope at 60', we should have been
able to see lots of black on the tail.

Since we couldn't cinch it with a nice black tail, we'd love to have others
add their thoughts. I know I've never seen any other gull with that
particular beak coloration & pattern (along with all the rest of the field
marks) and back at home, Harrison's Seabirds didn't give me any other ideas
than Black-tailed.

Good Birding,

Marcus Roening
Tacoma, WA
marcus.d.roening at gsk.com