Hello Tweets,

After much speculation today between a few birders on site while watching and photographing a very pale-mantled gull in Kent,King Co. then coming home and referring to an authority we came to the decision that the bird was an ICELAND GULL. It was nice to finally see this bird on our 5th attempt,which proves gulls are very elusive as many birders know! We do not at all believe there is more than gull with white primaries at this location and is the same bird than pictured in Charlie Wright's photos on Surfbird's com. The bird was observed during this afternoon between 1:30pm-after 4pm at the same location than the previous Iceland Gull has been reported and today being in the company of approximately 20 other gulls. The bird appears to be on the large end scale of an Iceland Gull,so most likely a male. It strongly appeared nearly the same overall size and structure than several nearby Glaucous-winged Gulls,as well as nearly the same general size as at least one Herring Gull. In some angles the Iceland Gull appeared to be bulkier and stockier than in other angles,as well as shorter billed to longer billed in other angles. The head shape also varied from relatively flat headed to round headed,depending on the position of the bird.To say the least the bird was quite deceiving,which may have been contributed to the lighting,etc. During our visit watching the Iceland Gull the bird remained very active by either preening heavily or walking about the gravelly surface surrounded by scattered areas of standing water. A single Thayer's Gull was also observed at the location,but was never with the Iceland Gull for exact size comparisons. It seemed a confusing bird to all of us in the field,especially to us since we initially observed an adult Iceland Gull along the Puyallup River near Tacoma during January 2000. This individual bird had an injured wing and seemed quite small in overall size and structure and thus was most likely a female bird.

We have placed photos of the Tacoma bird and the Kent bird onto our photo website for your viewing,which can be accessed from the following link: http://www.pbase.com/godwit/gull_photos/


Good birding,

Ruth and Patrick Sullivan
Fircrest,WA
godwit513 at msn.com