Hi,

I believe I saw Bob last year (early 2008) at Gene Coulon Memorial Beach Park in Renton. Being new to the area, I was unaware of Bob and the surrounding controversy, and I considered it a small Glaucous Gull without much thought. It was smaller than some of the Glaucous-winged Gulls next to it, but I didn't think anything else was odd about it.

I've now seen a few photos of Bob, and I would still call it a Glaucous, though I'd like to spend some more time looking at it in person before I take a firm stand on the ID. For the most part, I'm basing my opinion on the shape of the head and body, so I'm not sure if I can provide any objective criteria to support my opinion right now.

Anyway, my main reason for writing is that I put 29 photos of Iceland Gulls from St. John's, Newfoundland at http://www.zbirdtours.com/icelands.htm, plus a couple more at http://www.zbirdtours.com/stjohns/stjohns_largegulls.htm, for consideration. I believe that no individual appears in more than one photo, so the sample size is ~40 gulls. Obviously, the entire range of Iceland body and head shapes are probably not covered by these photos, FWIW. I made no corrections to these photos (they probably could stand to be lightened), and they're not intended to be "art" shots. Bigger copies are available upon request.

John Puschock
Wedgwood, Seattle
g_g_allin at hotmail.com
http://www.zbirdtours.com & http://www.birdtreks.com

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