Tweeters,

High noon, Graysmarsh beach access. But where are all the master birders? Their scopes should be all trained on a single lost Asian Larus. On no, I must do this myself. There are two problems to overcome beyond my elementary gull identification skills. Firstly, while it may be high noon, it looks like low tide, and most of the gulls are a long way out there. Lastly, while I may have been sharp enough to remember to put the scope in the vehicle, the same can not be said for the tripod.

With the sun mostly at my back I head down the beach to Stefan's grove of coniferous trees. I had only walked a little over a tenth of a mile when I notice that the gull that keeps dropping some poor crab on it's head has a nice black band on the end of it's tail. Humm, could it be? I take a squat on a drift log, cradle the scope in my hands, brace my elbows on my knees and begin to check off Scott Atkinson's listed features. "A dark gray mantle with a subtle hint of dark brown tone"---oh ya. Check-check-check-check. Everything checks out except eye color. I'm unable to make any kind
of eye color call. He's got pink feet.

Unfortunately I'm not set up for photography and this bird needs to have his picture taken.

If you go, check some tide tables first. You can find a description of this Graysmarsh place in Hal Opperman's "A Birders guide to Washington" pages 33-34.

Thanks Scott for keeping the Washington birding excitement going.

Good gulling,

Larry Schwitters
Issaquah


Stefan Schlick wrote:

> Mike Fleming and I headed over to Sequim today. After sifting through about 500 widely scattered gulls for about an hour, we found Scott's 3rd-winter Slaty-backed Gull at about 2:30pm this afternoon. From the primary access point where Wilcox makes a 90 degree turn, walk SE for about 0.25mi to about where the grove of coniferous trees to your right ends. This where we originally got on the bird. From there, the bird drifted further SE and eventually flew off to the SE again. The incoming tide pushed most gulls fairly close to shore, so viewing the gulls with the sun in our back was easy.
>
> THANQ, Scott! Your description of the bird was excellent!
>
> Stefan Schlick
> Bellevue