I spent the morning on the Washington side of the estuary
following up on some of the stuff reported yesterday on
the Columbia Estuary.

A spectacular feeding mob of gulls is apparently following
bait fish around. I estimated about 8000 birds in a single
group off Chinook Co Park and probably just about that many
could be seen further down river toward Sand Island.

My best estimate of the composition:
35% Mew Gulls
5% Herring Gulls
60% Western/Glaucous-winged and points in between

There were also quite a few Thayer's Gull and at least one
Glaucous Gull.

We tallied 44 Bald Eagles yesterday for the CBC, a seriously
shattered record. Of these, 26 were from Baker Bay. I saw
at least 15 just from Chinook today. I'm guessing also an
artifact of the dead mackerel in the bay...

--
Mike Patterson
Astoria, OR
celata at pacifier.com

If you want to end war and stuff, you've got to sing loud
- Arlo Guthrie