Scott,

Unless I'm misreading it, your gull may not have "strayed" as far as you think. If the cptn said you were 30 miles NW of the Cloumbia River Jetty, you were probably only 15 miles WNW of North Cove, where the bird has been seen. Grayland is just a little bit north of North Cove.

-Rolan

Scott Atkinson <scottratkinson at hotmail.com> wrote:
Tweeters:

Just returned from five days on the Olympic Peninsula (see following report)
but strayed south to take an out-of-town guest on a salmon charter out of
Westport. As the primary goal was catching salmon, you could hardly call
this a pelagic trip like the Westport Seabirds' ones. We never got further
than 13 miles out, most of the time we were 6-8 miles out. Still, the
fishing was excellent and an unexpected visitor took up residence right off
ther stern at the end of the trip.

The visitor was a winter-plum. ad. BLACK-TAILED GULL, with a few other
gulls, that cooperatively flew around the stern, alit on the water, and
otherwise availed itself to easy viewing. The prominent black tail band,
pale iris & suborbital ring, red-tipped bill with black band, dark gray
mantle with unspotted black wingtips, streaked/smudged nape, etc. were all
easy to see from very close range. Reminded me of being back in the RFE
again!

Our position at this time (about 2:30 p.m.) was about 13 miles offshore,
roughly straight off Grayland, s.w. of Wesport--the exact coordinates were
46 44 N 124 17 W, the skipper said that we were about 30 miles northwest of
the north jetty of the Columbia River. Given that my bird was functionally
identical to the now-famous one at North Cove, and that I see no reports of
the North Cove bird for the 6th, it is tempting to think that this could
well have been the same bird. 30 miles seems like a long way to stray in
search of food, but--who knows? In any case, I confess to feeling a little
lucky to have found the bird after an otherwise rather difficult trip (only
one of two boys landed a fish, my wife was very seasick, but our out-of-town
guest cleaned up). Other birds seen on the trip:

PELAGICS SEEN FROM DEEP SEA CHARTERS' F/V "SLAMMER" (Skipper Redt)

Sooty Shearwater 150
N. Fulmar 5
Pomarine Jaeger 1
Red-necked Phalarope 50
Red Phalarope 5

Scott Atkinson
Lake Stevens
mail to: scottratkinson at hotmail.com

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Rolan Nelson
Fircrest, WA
rnbuffle at yahoo.com

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