Hi Tweets,

As Charlie Wright mentioned on Tweeters earlier today, Dennis Duffy, Steve
Pink and I saw what we believe is an Iceland Gull, in Renton, today. It was
on the south end of Lk. Washington, visible from Cedar River Park. This is
the park between Renton Boeing plant and Renton Municipal Airport, where so
many Tweets hung out last winter looking for the Great Black-backed Gull,
Slaty-backed Gull and other unusual larids.

Today, we arrived around 11:45 and almost immediately Dennis spotted this
unusual gull. It was obviously either a Glaucous Gull or an Iceland Gull and
details of structure definitely pointed towards Iceland. The bird was
noticeably smaller than the nearby Glaucous-winged Gulls and the bill was
quite short for the size of the bird and rather slender, without a
noticeable gonydeal angle from the distance at which we were able to observe
it. The wingtips were pure white, which is interesting, as Kumlein?s would
likely have at least a little gray, but I believe the Tacoma Iceland of a
few years back had pure white wingtips as well.

Does anyone know if the Tacoma bird was accepted as an Iceland Gull by the
WRBC?

After watching the gull for about 25 mins. a Boeing jet came to the north
end of the runway and ramped up its engines for takeoff to the south, which
scattered all of the gulls (and perhaps vaporized a few). We lost sight of
the Iceland Gull at that point and it didn?t show up again in the next half
hour. We didn?t go over to look for it at Gene Coulon Park, as we could see
by scope that there were practically no gulls over there.

In addition to the Iceland Gull, there were around a dozen Thayer?s Gulls,
3-4 Herring Gulls, several Canvasback (off to the west), and 19 Greater
White-fronted Geese towards Gene Coulon Park. Those geese have probably
wintered there for at least eight years.

To get to the park from either Seattle, S. King County or the eastside take
I-405 to the Park Drive exit. Go west (downhill) on Park Dr. towards Renton
Boeing and the huge Frye?s store. Follow Park Dr. past Boeing and then go
right (west) on N.. 6th St. Follow this several blocks and cross Logan
(Ave?) passing another entry to Renton Boeing plant on your right. Fifty
yards straight ahead is the entrance to the park, where the road bends right
and follows the river. Park at the end of the road and walk towards the lake
and the boat/canoe club. The gulls like to gather here, but come and go.
Later afternoon seems to be a peak time for numbers.

Good luck!

Jim Flynn
Seattle, WA
buteoreg at comcast.net

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