Subject: [Tweeters] Skagit Glaucous Gull, Tree Sparrow
Date: Mar 8 22:39:51 2008
From: Gary Bletsch - garybletsch at yahoo.com


Dear Tweeters,

Today I checked the gull flock on the Skagit River
sandbar between Burlington and Mount Vernon (Skagit
County). Among the many gulls there was a Glaucous
Gull. At first I thought it could have been an
Iceland, but Bob Kuntz showed up with the gull book by
Howell and Dunn [sp?], and I am now sure it was a
GLGU. The bird was roughly the size of a
Glaucous-winged Gull, or even a tad smaller, but the
book says that's possible. Everything else checked out
for a first-spring GLGU, including white primaries and
a black-tipped bill. I was surprised to see a rather
modest gonydeal angle; the book notes that this is
normal for the species. Somehow I expected more of a
honking huge bill with a vicious-looking gonys, but
this bird's bill was modest in length, although quite
deep.

Also present on the bar were quite a few variations of
Glaucous-winged Gulls, including hybrids, and a few
that seemed almost Western Gulls, plus a few possible
Thayer's or Herring Gulls. Then there were quite a few
Mew Gulls, a "rosy" Ring-billed Gull, and a beautiful
breeding-plumage California Gull.

This location is in the Skagit River in Burlington,
west of the railroad bridge and east of the new
Burlington Boulevard/Riverside Drive bridge. There are
pullouts near a blind curve by the railroad trestle on
the Burlington side of the river.

Later on, at the Game Range on Fir Island, I found the
American Tree Sparrow. Other birders there saw Tree
Swallows, Rufous Hummingbird, and White-throated
Sparrow. The Great Horned Owl is still easy to see on
the nest there, but buds on the tree mean that the
nest will soon become harder to view.

Yours truly,

Gary Bletsch


Yours truly,

Gary Bletsch

near Lyman (Skagit County), Washington

garybletsch at yahoo.com



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