Hello Everyone, Another dawn at the Superior Entry between Duluth and Superior, and another fascinating gull. This one I first saw about 8:30 in the morning, it was among several hundred Herring Gulls that flew as I walked the breakwater to the lighthouse. As I watched it fly around and away, I saw that it was substantively bigger and bulkier than the Herring Gulls, and very, very white even for a Glaucous Gull. Unmarked, all white wingtips, and the only color on the whole bird seemed to be mantles and coverts that looked just slightly smudged with very light brown.
It landed on the beach and I spent about half an hour digiscoping it, and studying it through the scope. It has to be either first or second winter Sibley shows second winter as being lighter, but most of the photos I found on gull sites and so forth on the web show darker second winter birds. Either way, this one would be in palest 10% among the immature Glaucous Gull photos I could find. It has a bicolored bill, pink with a black tip, but I was too far away, and lighting was too poor, to see the tip of the tip, or the iris color. Conditions were really much too poor for photography as well, but I tried anyway, and despite the poor quality, find the one linked below to be interesting. It captures three species close to each other for a size comparions: the immature Glaucous Gull, a mature Ring-billed Gull, and a juvenile Herring Gull. http://www.bytephoto.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=30147 There were the most Herring Gulls out there that I have seen all fall, but no Thayers (or Great Black-backed) this time or even loons or scoters. There were Dunlins, Sanderlings and American Coots at Wisconsin Point, and Black-bellied Plovers and Horned Grebes at Park Point. Dan Amerman Duluth, MN _______________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Declare Yourself - Register online to vote today! http://vote.yahoo.com
