Hello Tweets,

On the 10th of August,2004 while observing the Common Eider at Pt.Angeles from Valley Creek Estuary Park my mother and I observed a small,pale gray mantled gull resting atop a floating logboom with 2 obvious larger Glaucous-winged Gulls. We nearly immediately thought that the smaller gull could have Iceland Gull genes going by a few immediate details we observed in our binoculars. With good lighting conditions we proceeded to take photos of the mystery gull and we remained puzzled about it's identity since it did not show proper field marks for a true Iceland Gull including a well rounded head, fairly short,but straight pale yellow bill and obvious yellow eye. What was most striking about this gull was the pale beige color along the outer wing linings of the outer primaries that stood out well,but aren't as visible in our photos of the bird. Overall the mystery gull was noticeable smaller and showed an obvious more slender,straighter,more paler yellow bill than the 2 nearby Glaucous-winged Gulls and the bird remained loafing on the floating logbooms during our entire visit. The eyes was an auburn color,which may be detected to some in our photos and the shape of the head gave the bird a flat-headed appearance,which also showed some fine spotting in the clearest of views. We acquire any assistance to identifying the gull by anyone and still remain undecided at this date what the gull could be. We have obtained several opinions and thoughts about this bird privately from at least 3 others sources,but decided to post our photos and observations of the bird hoping to get more feedback.

We have placed 2 photos of the Pt.Angeles gull on our website eventhough they may not be of the best quality they do show some detail and can be accessed at http://www.pbase.com/godwit/whatsis/ , then clicking on each thumbnail of the photo to enlarge it for better viewing. Any suggestions and opinions are welcome.


Sincerely,

Ruth and Patrick Sullivan
Fircrest,WA
godwit at worldnet.att.net