Tweeters,

Today (4/29) there was an advanced second-year gull roosting at the
mouth of Kalaloch Creek that on the surface looked like the size and
shape of a Herring Gull, but with really obvious yellow legs and
feet. It was roosting with a nice assortment of other large gulls -
Western, Glaucous-winged, Olympic, and typical Herrings (all of which
had the expected pink legs), allowing lots of comparisons.

This bird was clearly not one of the smaller yellow-legged gulls
you'd expect on our coast (e.g. California, Ring-billed, Mew), and it
didn't fit other larger yellow-legged types either, like Lesser Black-
backed. Its new mantle feathers were a medium gray -- not as light
as the typical Herrings standing with it, but not as dark as the
Westerns.

It was quite large, similar in stature to the other large gulls. It
had a sizable but fairly thin dull-yellowish bill with black
subterminal dark area and the beginnings of a red feeding spot. It
showed slightly more gonydeal angle than the accompanying Herrings, a
squarish head, and mostly dark eyes with the beginnings of some
slight internal color. Its head was mostly white, with some
smudginess around the eye. Its wing coverts and flight feathers
looked like typical 2nd year Herring Gull, with largely dark
primaries and secondaries. It had a dark tail band, typical of a 2nd
year. But its yellow legs and feet really stood out.

Unfortunately I didn't get pictures of the bird, but the memory of it
bugged me all day. Tonight I surfed the web and said WOW! when I
looked at the pictures of 2nd year Yellow-legged Gull, Larus
michahellis, such as at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Image:Larus_michahellis_subadult.jpg or at http://www.xs4all.nl/%
7edaarruud/michahellis3b.html. But whether Yellow-legged Gull fits,
or whether it is one of the yellow-legged Herring Gull subspecies
from Asia, I cannot say. Or maybe some strange young Olympic Gull
has the yellow leg gene -- explain that hybrid!

Graham Palmer, a visiting birder from Australia, saw the bird with
me, but we parted ways before we could figure out what it was.

So if anyone's traveling out Kalaloch way, be on the look out for a
large subadult gull with yellow legs and let us know what you think.

Bob Boekelheide
Sequim

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