I was doing a botany hike along the north edge of Bumping Lake yesterday, and was shocked to find 5 gulls out near the west end.

One was an adult BONAPARTE?S GULL. Three more were very brown black wing-tipped juveniles, and I?m leaning towards CALIFORNIA GULL for them. A fourth gull was a very pale juvenile. I?m not sure what it was, but from the looks I got, it best matches a juvenile VEGA HERRING GULL.

I?m sure about the Bonaparte?s; I?m decidedly not sure about the juvenile gulls :) I really wish I?d had my scope and a camera.


Friday, I walked up to the Mt. Freemont Lookout from Sunrise. Birds of note included a BLACK SWIFT, an AMERICAN DIPPER at (un)Frozen Lake, which seems very early to have one so high, and a male WHITE-TAILED PTARMIGAN on the trail near the lookout. At Tipsoo Lake, an OSPREY flew over; again this seems early to have one so high.

Saturday, I had 4-5 AMERICAN THREE-TOED WOODPECKERS while working my way along the road that follows the south shore of Bumping Lake; 2-3 were at a swamp, and 2 were at the fen. Sunday morning, a BARRED OWL called near the Bumping Lake campground at some wee hour of the pre-dawn.

All in all, it was a pretty good weekend of birding. And I must at that the old-growth forest at the northwest corner of Bumping Lake is phenomenal, and Bumping Falls, just a bit above the lake, are a real treasure.

== Michael Hobbs
== www.marymoor.org/birding.htm
== BirdMarymoor at frontier.com