The following is Stuart Johnston's description of
a Heermann's Gull sighting, originally spotted
by Stuart, and later seen by me, thanks to Stuart
leaving the bird to drive to my house to retrieve me.

"Here's a reward that was apparently dropped on
our doorstep by the violent winds blowing up the
Columbia River during the last storm. This is
copied from the entry I just finished for the
Fall season phenology of bird records in the
Columbia River Gorge, soon to be posted on the
web site "Birding Klickitat County".............

Heermann?s Gull ?
1 on 14 Nov., adult in nonbreeding
plumage, loafing with 50-60+ other gulls along
the w. shore of the big sandbar on the e. side of
the confluence channel at the Klickitat R. mouth.
It was first noted at 13:10, at which point I
jotted down the following field notes, scoping
(22x wide angle) from the w. side of the channel,
about 125 m. from the side lit bird; bright light, wan sun, no wind.
Overall, a sooty-slaty grey gull with a
bright, blood red bill that has a black tip.
Head, neck and underparts sooty grey. When head
is held at certain angles, it looks like sides of
head (auricular, eyeliner and superciliary area)
are slightly darker, but when facing toward the
light, these areas look similar to rest of head;
that said, nape, forehead and area on sides of
neck below auricular look somewhat paler in
certain light, possibly lighter than breast.
White crescents conspicuous below and above eye.
Mantle (back, scapulars and wing coverts) of
standing bird slaty, conspicuously darker than
head and underparts. Primaries very dark slaty,
look blackish. Conspicuous wide white tips to
secondaries form a vertical crescent on folded
wing, between blackish primaries and the slaty
mantle, plus there?s a conspicuous white spot
higher up on the inner folded wing (scapular
tip?). Cannot see tail well; it looks blackish. Legs black.
Bird looks dozy, so at 13:33 walk back up to the
car and drive on up to see if Bob Hansen is able
to come down for a look. We arrive at the river
mouth overlook at 14:00 and scope from there:
gull?s still present. Walk out on the sandbar and
again scope across the confluence channel. This
time, when Heermann?s is standing close by a Mew,
note that the former looks equal to, or possibly
slightly smaller than, size of the latter.
Californias are definitely bulkier, larger.
Attempts to digiscope gull failed. All at once,
at 14:28, perhaps ? of the gulls suddenly flew up
and off, including the Heermann?s. At this point
I see that tail is black with conspicuous white
tips to the rectrices. It flew sw. out toward the
s. side of the river, possibly entering Wasco
Co., OR, waters, and then headed downstream (BH, SJ).
Extremely gusty winds blew up the Columbia during
the last storm, possibly delivering this coastal
migrant to Klickitat Co. to become the second
record; the first was a bird seen about a decade ago at Roosevelt.
Before completing an errand in Hood River,
stopped at both sides of the Hood R. mouth to
check the gull flocks there for Heermann?s, but
did not see one. Scanned flocks for half an hour,
from 16:30 to 17:05, dusk (SJ). "