The week before Labord Day, I took my son on a vacation out to Seattle and over to the Olympic Penisular. Since it was not an official birding trip for me, I birded whenever I could and still managed to get get 92 species including 5 lifers. However, Gulls were the one group that I did get to spend a lot time on, especially around our hotel in Port Angeles, identifying 9 species over 8 days (Glaucous-winged, Herring, Western, California, Glaucous, Mew, Ring-billed, Heermann's and Bonaparte's Gull). Unfortunately for me, it was probably the absolute worst time of the year to try and ID these gulls! Right now, I am so glad that I took that class on Gull ID earlier this year. Understanding that both year class and molt were significant factors in their ID probably saved my sanity!! Problem #1 was that for each of the 9 species, I might have been looking at an adults, juveniles or between 1 and 3 other year classes (cycles); Problem #2 was that any two of the first 5 species could hybridize; and Problem 3 was that it seemed like just about every gull that I looked at that week seemed to be in some stage of its pre-basic molt. Take a look at what I was up against:
The red spot on this gull identifies this bird as an adult, and the more grayish color to the primarys suggest a Glaucous-winged Gull, however; where are the white tips to the primarys? and don't these primaries look darker than is normal for a Glaucous-winged Gull? Initial impression - it is a Glaucous-winged Gull.
The all black bill makes this gull a juvenile, but based upon the appearce of its wings, it is well along on its1st cycle pre-basic molt. Unfortunately it is hard to tell if those primarys are going to be black or gray. My initial impression - it is a possible Glaucous-wing Hybrid.
The black tip to this bill, means this is an immature bird, based on the appearance gray on some of the secondaries, this bird is in its pre-2nd cycle molt. The brownish color to the primaries indicate they are old and bleached out, and probably were black not gray. My initial impression - a possible Herring Gull hybrid??
This gull also has a bill with a black tip, but the rest of the bill is red. Fortunately only one of our West Coast gull has this combination - an adult Heerman's Gull. This one is in its adult pre-basic molt.
As you can see trying to ID West Coast Gull's in late August/early September can be an extreme birding challenge. Many an experienced birder would just ignore the whole group. What was I thinking? If I wanted to be challenged by a difficutly group, I could have gone to Central America for Flycatchers. Wait, what am I saying? I am going to Panama at the end of October. The good news is there I will have a guide to help me.
