Hello, Tweeters,

My wife, Barb, and I perused the gulls at the Elwha River mouth at
Place Road this morning about 10 a.m. Not many gulls were onshore,
but among the gulls at the roost (30 or so GWGU/Olympic Gulls,10 or
so Thayer's Gulls, 2 Herring Gulls, one California Gull, and 2
Western Gulls) was a very nice adult alternate-plumaged Iceland Gull.

Perhaps this is the same individual reported at the Elwha by Drew
Wheelan on 1/23/07, although he wrote that the one he saw was a
winter bird, whereas the one today had a very white head with no
streaking at all. Perhaps it had molted into alternate plumage since
seen by Drew, or perhaps it is a different bird.

The bird had a very light gray mantle, noticably lighter than the
Thayer's standing with it. Its overall body size was close to or
maybe even slightly smaller than the average Thayer's, with a fairly
rounded head. It was clearly smaller than the GWGU with it. Its
wingtips, which obviously extended well beyond the tail, were pure
white with no hint of pigment, in addition to a white "skirt" that
extended around the edges of the secondaries and lots of white in the
ends of the tertials. Its eyes were light yellow, but not as
strikingly pale as the Herring Gulls' eyes nearby. It showed some
red scaling around the eyes, which Barb particularly noticed. Its
bill was fairly small, about comparable to the Thayer's bills nearby,
but it did have a fair gonydeal angle with a sizable red feeding
spot. Nice pink legs. It sure looked more like the nominate
glaucoides subspecies and not a Kumlien's type, as this bird had pure
white wingtips top and bottom.

We studied it for about 20 minutes with our scope while it roosted
with the other gulls, then as the tide came in it took off and flew
straight north over the Strait, where we followed it in flight for a
few minutes. It was very white in the underwing as well. Will it
return, or is it time to head back to the Arctic?

Bob Boekelheide
Sequim