Just got back from Westport and Pizza.

Found the bird about 2:30 this afternoon, amazingly exactly where Mary
saw it two days ago. Unfortunately it's bill has too much black in it
and most likely is a Bonaparte's. I had just gotten my scope set up
when Mike and MerryLynn Denny drove up. We were all in ID agreement.

The Red Phalaropes were still there and the Westport Marina area (just
behind the public restrooms) produced 22 Rock Sandpipers.

Larry Schwitters
Issaquah
On Friday, January 6, 2006, at 07:55 PM, Rolan Nelson wrote:

> Tweeters,
> ?
> Has anyone had the chance to check out Mary's Gull at Bottle Beach?
> ?
> -Rolan
>
> hrudkaj mary <hrudkajm at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> While out looking for sunshine (successful) and red phalaropes (also
> successful) I found an interest gull out near Bottle Beach in Grays
> Harbor
> County. It was in a flooded pasture just SW of the first driveway west
> of
> the Bottle Beach State Park parking area across from Acosta 3rd St
> (where
> there is a lone immature trumpeter swan).
>
> The gull was a bit larger than a Bonaparte's gull which I first
> thought it
> was. But after studying it for about 20 minutes and referring to two
> bird
> guides I'm leaning to it being a Black-headed Gull. What really caught
> my
> eye was the vividly deep red shortish legs and the dark red, small-!
> ish bill
> (which showed dark red when the sun caught it just right). The legs
> were a
> much darker and richer red that those of a Bonaparte's legs. It's head
> had
> a small black circle behind the eye and a darker gray line from there
> and
> one from over the eye swept toward the back of the crown, meeting the
> lines
> from the other side of its head creating a dark gray patch on top of
> the
> head. When it flew up it did not have dark underwings ruling out a
> Little
> Gull. It's dark red bill ruled out a red-legged kittiwake. It appeared
> a
> lighter shade of gray overalll than a Bonaparte's gull. It had no
> winter
> mottling on its head such a mew gull might have. This gull was the only
> gull in the pasture, or anywhere else visible from there. At times, as
> it
> stood on some matted vegetation, it would bob its head up and down but
> held
> its head erect unlike how a feeding shorebird would do.
>
> The same pasture had at least a dozen red phalaropes dervishly!
> whirling as
> they fed. Many greater yellow-legs wandered about in the water. There
> was
> a great derth of geese anywhere I was today (I got fooled into
> checking out
> some 'geese' off a road just north of Ocosta 6th St., they are decoys).
>
> A jaunt through Brady Loop and Shouweiler brought dozens of
> black-bellied
> plovers and hundreds of dunlin in the read of Foster and Brady Loop Rd.
> Raptors included bald eagle, rough-legged hawk, red-tailed hawk,
> northern
> harrier and kestrals between the two roads. The extensively flooded
> fields
> on Shouweiler Rd. were completely barren of waterfowl of any kind. Six
> trumpeter swans did a fly over on Brady Rd. and two tundra swans were
> also
> on Brady Rd.
>
> In all a good day. Hopefully the gull will be around so someone with
> better
> gull skills than I can get a look at it.
>
> Mary Hrudkaj
> Belfair/N. Mason County
> hrudkajm at hotmail.com
>
>
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>
>
>
> Rolan Nelson
> Fircrest, WA
> rnbuffle at yahoo.com
>
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