Dear Tweeters,
There were two gulls that I could not identify today, amongst the large flocks.
At the cobble bar in Burlington, between the railroad trestle and the Burlington Boulevard bridge, in the Skagit River, there was one dark-mantled, pink-legged gull that really puzzled me. It was dark like a Western, but it had dark markings on the head. The eye was amber-colored, not dark. It had noticeable white spots in the primaries. I thought it was a little bit smaller than most of the Glaucous-winged gulls with it, but larger than a Thayer's nearby. I took some bad photos, and will eventually put them on an eBird checklist.
At the gull field north of the ?Samish West Ninety was a bird that I would have called a juvenile Glaucous, except the base of the bill was pinkish-black, not pink.
Yours truly,
Gary Bletsch