Cropped cell phone pic, I was amazed at how close we got to this Pileated Woodpecker
Got any bird pics?
- Thread starter Wadin' Boot
- Start date
Thanks, SS.
They are pretty birds. They frequent our suet feeder and are tearing to pieces an older, tall fir stump.
They are pretty birds. They frequent our suet feeder and are tearing to pieces an older, tall fir stump.
Gyrfalcon22
Legend
Hiked solo 40 miles round trip to the headwaters of an eastern rainforest river a month ago and only saw two hikers on the main trail over 3+ days (got a little smoked out last day and the reason so few 'wiser' hikers up there, all because of the Bear Gulch fire a few ridges south). I shared the scenery with some of my favorite birds. Dippers are one, always-especially on a milky glacial river stretch where the unique birds are truly sentients living a happy life seemingly without care. Canada Jays were present as were other smaller songbirds high in the upper meadows.
Sandhills are rolling through often near the coast now. The great cranes and soon to be arriving swans are as graceful as any birds found anywhere in my book.
Sandhills are rolling through often near the coast now. The great cranes and soon to be arriving swans are as graceful as any birds found anywhere in my book.
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Birds of the Salish Sea: Part 1: Alcids. The pictures here are primarily from a wildlife tour of the Cattle Pass area (south end of Lopez and San Juan Islands) that my wife, my brother-in-law, and I did in late July and a puffin-cruise out of Port Townsend to Smith Island in early September. We were fortunate to have some great views at many of the birds (and marine mammals, more later) that you might find in the Salish Sea. Many species (and families) will join their foraging efforts at bird balls. This bird ball includes common murres, red-necked grebes, pelagic cormorants, glaucous-winged gulls and ring-billed gulls.
The alcids / auks (family Alcidae with 25ish species) are one of the more iconic nearshore marine species in the PNW. Species in this family include murres, guillemots, puffins, and auklets. Alcids are found exclusively in the cooler waters of the Northern hemisphere. The alcids are the ecological equivalents of the penguins (family Spheniscidae with 17+ species) of the Southern Hemisphere. Both propel themselves underwater using their wings. It has been proposed that both are restricted to cooler waters because of the locomotion advantages that cool water provides as these endothermic (warm-blooded) birds pursue their ectothermic (cold-blooded) prey. In areas with higher water temperatures, their ectothermic prey (fish, krill, etc.) reach faster swimming speeds physiologically, while the swimming speeds of the endothermic alcids and penguins are unchanged. This makes prey capture in warmer water a bigger challenge for alcids (and for penguins).
Obviously, the major attractions for the trip to Smith Island was to the chance to see tufted puffins in one of their last breeding areas in the Salish Sea. I do remember seeing puffins off Iceberg Point on southwest end of Lopez island in the early 90’s but I haven’t seen any there in recent years [It appears that they did previously breed in the San Juan Islands, but no longer.]. On the cruise, we had several opportunities to see tufted puffins, still in breeding plumage with big bright bills and yellow feather tufts.
In the non-breeding season, they lose the tufts and shed the outer layer of their bill, the rhamphotheca of keratin, resulting in a smaller “eclipse” bill. The naturalist on board said that one reason that puffins have a larger bill in summer is to radiate excess metabolic heat. Researchers [“Huffin’ and puffin: seabirds use large bills to dissipate heat from energetically demanding flight“ ] used a Flir infrared camera to track heat loss in tufted puffins after returning to feed their chicks on breeding islands in Alaska. As the largest puffin species (with high flight costs due to their relatively short wings) but with a near-spherical body shape (poor surface area to body mass ratio – great for retaining heat, poor for losing heat), a puffin generates substantial metabolic heat when in flight. Unlike rhinoceros auklets (more later), a pair of tufted puffins will undertake multiple flights each day to feed their single chick. According to the research, the enlarged bill during the breeding season eliminates 10-18% of the metabolic heat generated in flight. During the non-breeding season, bill size is reduced as flying is far less important and heat retention is more critical. [Maintaining endothermy may also explain why you will often see resting birds with their bill tucked into their insulating feathers when resting in cold weather. Birds also lose the heat through their legs; perhaps this is why you will see birds standing on one leg with the other tucked into their feathers – half the heat loss.]. The large canvas provided by the large puffin bill is also used for mate attraction and courtship via fluorescent pigments.
While the number of tufted puffins in the Salish Sea has been declining, populations of rhinoceros auklets have been stable or even increasing, especially at Protection Island National Wildlife Refuge (71,000+ birds, one of the largest colonies in the world), Smith Island, and Destruction Island. I often see rhinoceros auklets foraging in the waters around the San Juans.
even though the San Juans are a 20+ mile flight to the first two breeding islands. Rhinoceros auklets appear to major drivers of bait balls; groups of rhinoceros auklets work with cormorants and even spiny dogfish (seen while snorkeling in the Strait) to drive schooling fish such as herring or sand lance to the surface where the bait ball is also attacked by gulls, adding to the confusion. Unlike tufted puffins that deliver food to their chick multiple times per day, rhinoceros auklets deliver multiple whole fish to their single nestling in its burrow only once per day, after sunset. Alcids like rhinoceros auklets can hold multiple slippery fish in their bills by using their tongue to press the fish against bony spikes (palatal denticles) on the palate (roof of the mouth) until they make their nocturnal delivery.
Unlike the nesting burrows of tufted puffins or rhinoceros auklets, reproduction by marbled murrelets is intimately tied to old-grown forests. Most pairs nest on large moss-covered branches of old-growth conifers, such as Douglas firs and western hemlock, up to 55 miles from the ocean. At fledging, their single offspring must make a single flight from their nest tree to salt water. Logging along the coast has impacted the abundance of nest trees and contributed to populations declines that have put marbled murrelets on the Endangered Species list. I suspect that there are breeding pairs in the San Juan Islands, as I often see them in the islands, albeit at low densities, often tight to the shoreline.
While pigeon guillemots have a dichromatic plumage in the breeding season: dark brown / black (most of the body) and white (wing patch),
their bright red mouth
and legs make them stand out.
Nonbreeding and immature individuals have far more white feathers in their plumage. Pigeon guillemots are not abundant in any one location, but they are widespread in the Salish Sea. For the last several years, my wife and her student interns have been studying the behavior of pigeon guillemots around San Juan Island. Based on their observations, pigeon guillermots will nest on ledges found below vertical cliffs, a strategy that minimizes access by terrestrial predators.
Pigeon guillemots will also nest under docks with the right structure. They typically forage close to their nest sites. Unlike the other alcids that I have mentioned that feed primarily on schooling fish (e.g., sand lance, herring, anchovies), pigeon guillemots around San Juan Island consume benthic fishes, especially pricklebacks, gunnels, and sculpins (probably northern sculpins).
Common murres range across the cool marine waters of the Northern Hemisphere. Individuals in breeding plumage are dark chocolate brown with a white breast and belly.
Juveniles and non-breeding adults have more white feathers on their heads and bodies. Common murres breed in dense aggregations at several locations along the outer coast of Washington, especially offshore islands. The female will lay a single egg on a ledge. Some adults and their single offspring migrate into the Strait of Juan de Fuca after fledgling to feed.
Steve
The alcids / auks (family Alcidae with 25ish species) are one of the more iconic nearshore marine species in the PNW. Species in this family include murres, guillemots, puffins, and auklets. Alcids are found exclusively in the cooler waters of the Northern hemisphere. The alcids are the ecological equivalents of the penguins (family Spheniscidae with 17+ species) of the Southern Hemisphere. Both propel themselves underwater using their wings. It has been proposed that both are restricted to cooler waters because of the locomotion advantages that cool water provides as these endothermic (warm-blooded) birds pursue their ectothermic (cold-blooded) prey. In areas with higher water temperatures, their ectothermic prey (fish, krill, etc.) reach faster swimming speeds physiologically, while the swimming speeds of the endothermic alcids and penguins are unchanged. This makes prey capture in warmer water a bigger challenge for alcids (and for penguins).
Obviously, the major attractions for the trip to Smith Island was to the chance to see tufted puffins in one of their last breeding areas in the Salish Sea. I do remember seeing puffins off Iceberg Point on southwest end of Lopez island in the early 90’s but I haven’t seen any there in recent years [It appears that they did previously breed in the San Juan Islands, but no longer.]. On the cruise, we had several opportunities to see tufted puffins, still in breeding plumage with big bright bills and yellow feather tufts.
In the non-breeding season, they lose the tufts and shed the outer layer of their bill, the rhamphotheca of keratin, resulting in a smaller “eclipse” bill. The naturalist on board said that one reason that puffins have a larger bill in summer is to radiate excess metabolic heat. Researchers [“Huffin’ and puffin: seabirds use large bills to dissipate heat from energetically demanding flight“ ] used a Flir infrared camera to track heat loss in tufted puffins after returning to feed their chicks on breeding islands in Alaska. As the largest puffin species (with high flight costs due to their relatively short wings) but with a near-spherical body shape (poor surface area to body mass ratio – great for retaining heat, poor for losing heat), a puffin generates substantial metabolic heat when in flight. Unlike rhinoceros auklets (more later), a pair of tufted puffins will undertake multiple flights each day to feed their single chick. According to the research, the enlarged bill during the breeding season eliminates 10-18% of the metabolic heat generated in flight. During the non-breeding season, bill size is reduced as flying is far less important and heat retention is more critical. [Maintaining endothermy may also explain why you will often see resting birds with their bill tucked into their insulating feathers when resting in cold weather. Birds also lose the heat through their legs; perhaps this is why you will see birds standing on one leg with the other tucked into their feathers – half the heat loss.]. The large canvas provided by the large puffin bill is also used for mate attraction and courtship via fluorescent pigments.
While the number of tufted puffins in the Salish Sea has been declining, populations of rhinoceros auklets have been stable or even increasing, especially at Protection Island National Wildlife Refuge (71,000+ birds, one of the largest colonies in the world), Smith Island, and Destruction Island. I often see rhinoceros auklets foraging in the waters around the San Juans.
even though the San Juans are a 20+ mile flight to the first two breeding islands. Rhinoceros auklets appear to major drivers of bait balls; groups of rhinoceros auklets work with cormorants and even spiny dogfish (seen while snorkeling in the Strait) to drive schooling fish such as herring or sand lance to the surface where the bait ball is also attacked by gulls, adding to the confusion. Unlike tufted puffins that deliver food to their chick multiple times per day, rhinoceros auklets deliver multiple whole fish to their single nestling in its burrow only once per day, after sunset. Alcids like rhinoceros auklets can hold multiple slippery fish in their bills by using their tongue to press the fish against bony spikes (palatal denticles) on the palate (roof of the mouth) until they make their nocturnal delivery.
Unlike the nesting burrows of tufted puffins or rhinoceros auklets, reproduction by marbled murrelets is intimately tied to old-grown forests. Most pairs nest on large moss-covered branches of old-growth conifers, such as Douglas firs and western hemlock, up to 55 miles from the ocean. At fledging, their single offspring must make a single flight from their nest tree to salt water. Logging along the coast has impacted the abundance of nest trees and contributed to populations declines that have put marbled murrelets on the Endangered Species list. I suspect that there are breeding pairs in the San Juan Islands, as I often see them in the islands, albeit at low densities, often tight to the shoreline.
While pigeon guillemots have a dichromatic plumage in the breeding season: dark brown / black (most of the body) and white (wing patch),
their bright red mouth
and legs make them stand out.
Nonbreeding and immature individuals have far more white feathers in their plumage. Pigeon guillemots are not abundant in any one location, but they are widespread in the Salish Sea. For the last several years, my wife and her student interns have been studying the behavior of pigeon guillemots around San Juan Island. Based on their observations, pigeon guillermots will nest on ledges found below vertical cliffs, a strategy that minimizes access by terrestrial predators.
Pigeon guillemots will also nest under docks with the right structure. They typically forage close to their nest sites. Unlike the other alcids that I have mentioned that feed primarily on schooling fish (e.g., sand lance, herring, anchovies), pigeon guillemots around San Juan Island consume benthic fishes, especially pricklebacks, gunnels, and sculpins (probably northern sculpins).
Common murres range across the cool marine waters of the Northern Hemisphere. Individuals in breeding plumage are dark chocolate brown with a white breast and belly.
Juveniles and non-breeding adults have more white feathers on their heads and bodies. Common murres breed in dense aggregations at several locations along the outer coast of Washington, especially offshore islands. The female will lay a single egg on a ledge. Some adults and their single offspring migrate into the Strait of Juan de Fuca after fledgling to feed.
Steve
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Birds of the Salish Sea: Part 2: Cormorants. There are 40ish species of cormorants (likely derived from the Latin corvus marinus = “ravens” of the “sea”) and shags (which refers to the crest that some species have in the breeding season) in the family Phalacrocoracidae. All cormorants dive to feed on fish. They are propelled underwater by their webbed feet. There are three cormorant species in Washington: double-crested, pelagic, and Brant’s.
The double-crested cormorant is the only cormorant species that you will find in inland waters in Washington. In areas where they are common, they are viewed as villains because of their impacts on trout and salmon smolt populations. This species ranges across the U.S. with populations extending along the coasts of British Columbia and Alaska, some islands in the Caribbean, and along the coast of Central America. Orange-yellow pigmentation in their throat pouch and at the base of the bill are easy features to identify this species. Breeding adults are otherwise black. They appear to produce less waterproofing oils than do other diving birds, such as alcids or scoters, Therefore, cormorants typically float lower in the water than do other marine birds.
Periodically, they will rest out of the water with their wings spread, perhaps to dry their feathers.
Juveniles / non-breeding adults are lighter in color.
Double-crested cormorants are the most common cormorant species in the Salish Sea. Double-crested cormorants may form nesting colonies in trees,
on the ground, or on cliffs (real
and artificial)
in freshwater and marine habitats in Washington.
While individuals may hunt solo, they will also hunt in coordinated flocks. I have watched flocks of diving cormorants drive a school of fish toward the shore which is lined with herons and egrets. The combined confusion makes it easier for all to capture fish. They are also common members of bird balls, often working with alcids and spiny dogfish to drive schooling fish to the surface.
I typically associate Brandt’s cormorants with the exposed rocky coast. They are common on the long rock jetty off Westport for example. So, I was surprised to find several Brandt’s cormorants on the rocky islands between San Juan and Lopez Islands. Of course, this is perhaps one of the most exposed locations in the Salish Sea with a long fetch for waves building north from Admiralty Inlet or west down the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The blue gular pouch is a key identifier.
They nest along the coast. One year, two pairs even nested at the end of the Westport jetty.
When I first started birding in the PNW in the early 80’s, pelagic cormorants were relatively rare. They are the smallest of the three PNW cormorant species. They have a relatively slender bill. They lack the orange-yellow (double-crested) or blue (Brant’s) gular pouch. In the breeding season, the black plumage has a green sheen.
During the breeding season, they develop a patch of white feathers on either side of the rump.
I also have a behavioral “tell” for pelagic cormorants when you don’t have a good view of the head. When pelagic cormorants dive, they appear to ‘hop” as they flex their tail feathers. Historically, pelagic cormorants have formed large nesting colonies on Protection Island, Smith Island, and Jagged Island. They appear to have exploited the new design of the protective wings at Washington ferry terminals, such as at Anacortes, as nesting area (pseudo cliff ledges on artificial islands???).
Steve
The double-crested cormorant is the only cormorant species that you will find in inland waters in Washington. In areas where they are common, they are viewed as villains because of their impacts on trout and salmon smolt populations. This species ranges across the U.S. with populations extending along the coasts of British Columbia and Alaska, some islands in the Caribbean, and along the coast of Central America. Orange-yellow pigmentation in their throat pouch and at the base of the bill are easy features to identify this species. Breeding adults are otherwise black. They appear to produce less waterproofing oils than do other diving birds, such as alcids or scoters, Therefore, cormorants typically float lower in the water than do other marine birds.
Periodically, they will rest out of the water with their wings spread, perhaps to dry their feathers.
Juveniles / non-breeding adults are lighter in color.
Double-crested cormorants are the most common cormorant species in the Salish Sea. Double-crested cormorants may form nesting colonies in trees,
on the ground, or on cliffs (real
and artificial)
in freshwater and marine habitats in Washington.
While individuals may hunt solo, they will also hunt in coordinated flocks. I have watched flocks of diving cormorants drive a school of fish toward the shore which is lined with herons and egrets. The combined confusion makes it easier for all to capture fish. They are also common members of bird balls, often working with alcids and spiny dogfish to drive schooling fish to the surface.
I typically associate Brandt’s cormorants with the exposed rocky coast. They are common on the long rock jetty off Westport for example. So, I was surprised to find several Brandt’s cormorants on the rocky islands between San Juan and Lopez Islands. Of course, this is perhaps one of the most exposed locations in the Salish Sea with a long fetch for waves building north from Admiralty Inlet or west down the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The blue gular pouch is a key identifier.
They nest along the coast. One year, two pairs even nested at the end of the Westport jetty.
When I first started birding in the PNW in the early 80’s, pelagic cormorants were relatively rare. They are the smallest of the three PNW cormorant species. They have a relatively slender bill. They lack the orange-yellow (double-crested) or blue (Brant’s) gular pouch. In the breeding season, the black plumage has a green sheen.
During the breeding season, they develop a patch of white feathers on either side of the rump.
I also have a behavioral “tell” for pelagic cormorants when you don’t have a good view of the head. When pelagic cormorants dive, they appear to ‘hop” as they flex their tail feathers. Historically, pelagic cormorants have formed large nesting colonies on Protection Island, Smith Island, and Jagged Island. They appear to have exploited the new design of the protective wings at Washington ferry terminals, such as at Anacortes, as nesting area (pseudo cliff ledges on artificial islands???).
Steve
Bonefish Jack
Steelhead
This Golden-crowned Kinglet somehow found its way to our couch on our patio. Not sure how or why. Usually they are way up in the firs. 
Hung out for 15 minutes, then was gone
Hung out for 15 minutes, then was gone
I have a hunch it probably hit a window and was spending some time on the couch hopefully recovering.
Bonefish Jack
Steelhead
I thought of that. I was sitting five feet away, and didn’t hear anything. As tiny as they are, maybe very little sound …
Needed to get out of the house so went to look at fish. Not many around so I stopped by the heron rookery. Wasn’t expecting any birds but got some better nest pics then this spring due to less foliage.
SF
SF
Birds of the Salish Sea: Part 3: Gulls. One might encounter up to 23 gull species (family Laridae which also includes terns, noddies, and skimmers) in Washington state.
While often easy photographic subjects, confident identification can be challenging. I just don’t even bother with identification of juvenile gulls. The immatures of most species go through a series of plumages before settling on the adult plumage. Even the adult plumage of a species may show subtle differences between breeding and non-breeding seasons. I have some confidence in my identification of the adults of the small / medium-sized gull species in the Salish Sea.
Ring-billed gulls are found across North America and migrate into the Caribbean and Mexico in the winter. They breed from coast to coast in a band of state and provinces along the U.S. / Canada border. If you see a gull inland, it is likely a ring-billed gull, especially around human habitation. Adults have a pale gray mantle, a white head (some brown streaking in the non-breeding season), yellow legs, a pale eye, and a black band near the tip of their yellow bill.
One reason that ring-billed gulls have such a broad distribution is that they are very catholic in their diet, including fish, insects, grain, and human garbage. Ring-billed gulls form nesting colonies near water. The nests are minimal, often just a depression in the ground.
Similar in size, short-billed gulls are in the Salish Sea during their non-breeding season. They breed in Alaska and Northwestern Canada. When I started birding, I learned this species as the mew gull. However in 2021, the species was split into the common gull of Eurasia and the short-billed gull of Western North America. The short-billed gull is perhaps a bit smaller than a ring-billed gull with a gray mantle and black primaries, and yellow legs. Unlike the ring-billed gull, the bill of short-billed gull lacks a blank band. Also, the iris of the short-billed gull is brown, while the iris of the ring-billed is yellow.
Heermann’s gulls are another migrant into the Salish Sea during the non-breeding season, albeit from a completely different direction. Almost all Heermann’s gulls breed on Isla Rasa in the Gulf of California. They disperse north along the coast after breeding. When recently-breeding adults arrive in the Salish sea, they have black legs, a red bill with a black tip, a bright-white head, a dark gray mantle, and a gray neck and breast.
As they transition into the non-breeding plumage, the head becomes gray, like the neck and breast.
Bonaparte’s gulls are the smallest gull you are likely to encounter in the Salish Sea. If you encounter them as they migrate north to their breeding grounds in the boreal forests of Alaska and Canada, they will have a black head and bill, a white ring around a dark eye, and bright red legs/feet.
About the time they migrate south to the Salish Sea in late summer, they molt into their non-breeding plumage: white head with a black “ear” spot and the legs a more muted pink.
On their breeding grounds, they will frequently hawk flying insects. In the Salish Sea, they typically target prey that are too small or too elusive for larger gulls, such as larval fish, krill, amphipods, copepods, and mysids that they pluck from the water’s surface. They are mobile enough to hover efficiently just above the water’s surface.
Frankly, I find the large, white-headed gulls in Washington to be an identification nightmare (and I am not alone). On paper, it should be easy to separate the most common species: glaucous-winged gulls, herring gulls, and Western gulls (with a few rarer species like Thayer’s gull, Glaucous gull, or Icelandic gull in the mix). Key characters include mantle color, primary color, bill color and markings, leg color, iris and eye-ring colors, and gape colors. [Frankly, I’ve been wrestling with these identifications for over a year…). Consulting several web sites (see here and here and the Birds of the World) and field guides (e.g., Sibley), I developed a species by characteristic table to help with identification.
Complicating the situation, species hybridize frequently, including multi-generation hybrids (can you say character bouillabaisse…). In addition, some differences are subtle, with one’s perception changing with ambient light. Frankly, these large gulls are confusing and frustrating.
Let’s start with one of the clearer ID from a pair of gulls standing on some floating Nereocystis stipes/bulbs and driftwood.
On my first pass through these images, I lazily called these glaucous-winged gulls. But after putting together the table, I realized my error. First, these gulls do not have pink legs, but greenish-yellow legs and a dark spot next to the red spot on the bill = California gull. This is confirmed by the red eye ring and the orange gape. While California gulls do not breed along the coast, they are known to breed in inland areas, such as islands along the Columbia River, often with ring-billed gulls. These birds are in prime breeding plumage (completely white necks and heads). As the image is from middle July, I don’t know if they are either on their way to their breeding colony or have returned early.
The most common large gull in Puget Sound and the Eastern Strait of Juan de Fuca should be the glaucous-winged gull. This is at the southern end of their breeding range along the coast. A “pure” glaucous-winged gull should have a very light gray mantle and matching primaries.
Unlike western gulls that maintain pure white heads in the non-breeding season, the white head of a non-breeding glaucous-winged gull is streaked with brown feathers.
You will find the western gull out at Westport and extending south along the coast. Unlike the very light mantle and wing primaries of glaucous-winged gulls, western gulls have a darker gray mantle and black primaries.
The differences in the mantle and primary colors should make distinguishing these two species easy. However in the Salish Sea and Grays Harbor (perhaps to Coos Bay), western gulls and glaucous-winged gulls commonly interbreed and their hybrids interbreed. The resulting birds are intermediate, in various degrees, to the parents. Most commonly, they can be identified because the mantle is intermediate in the intensity of gray between the two parent species. Also, the color of the primaries is often darker than the mantle color.
If you look at this picture from a bird ball in the San Juans (we'll ignore the rhinoceros auklet in the background),
the two gulls facing left are more toward the glaucous-winged end of the scale. But the two gulls facing to the right clearly have darker mantles, reflecting some western gull influence (but the primaries of the closest of the two are gray, not black).
Some birders have argued that most of the “glaucous-winged” gulls in the Salish Sea are hybrids based on their intermediate characteristics. Because these hybrids are so common, often outnumbering either parent species, birders have given them their own unofficial name, the “Olympic” gull (see here and here).
This hybrid zone is stable or slowly expanding south. Studies indicate that hybrid gulls do well in the Salish Sea, especially in the face of intense bald eagle predation. However, hybrids are outcompeted further south by purer Western gulls and further north by pure glaucous-winged gulls (see here and here).
And then you have gulls that just make you scratch your head, such as this bird.
Let’s compare this bird to the table. Mantle: darker = not glaucous-winged, closer to Western. Primaries: dark = not glaucous, several options. Bill: yellow with red spot = not California (red and black). Legs: unknown. Iris: pale yellow = not California (red) or glaucous-winged (pink to purple). Eye ring: pink = glaucous-winged. Gape = yellow = herring gull. So, the yellow gape says herring gull, but the pink eye ring is total wrong for herring gull (yellow orange). It cannot be a Western gull (pink gape) or glaucous-winged gull (pink gape) because of the yellow gape. Nothing matches the table. I also looked at other rarer gull species that might be in the the area, such as Thayer’s (reddish-purple eye ring and pale gray mantle) or glaucous (yellow to yellow-orange eye ring, very pale gray mantle) and none of them have the combination of features found on this bird. This is a great picture of an adult gull in breeding plumage, but I can’t confidently identify it.
I’ve spent my professional career researching the biology of sculpins (family Cottidae sensu lato) in the PNW. Because they can be challenging to identify, many researchers just don’t even try. Many pictures that you find online are misidentified. Olympic National Park had a brochure of a tidepool fish that they had identified as a tidepool sculpin (Oligocottus maculatus), but the picture was actually a scaly-head sculpin (Artedius harringtoni). So, I can crack difficult identifications, but those large gulls have left me frustrated. Any help gladly accepted…
Steve
While often easy photographic subjects, confident identification can be challenging. I just don’t even bother with identification of juvenile gulls. The immatures of most species go through a series of plumages before settling on the adult plumage. Even the adult plumage of a species may show subtle differences between breeding and non-breeding seasons. I have some confidence in my identification of the adults of the small / medium-sized gull species in the Salish Sea.
Ring-billed gulls are found across North America and migrate into the Caribbean and Mexico in the winter. They breed from coast to coast in a band of state and provinces along the U.S. / Canada border. If you see a gull inland, it is likely a ring-billed gull, especially around human habitation. Adults have a pale gray mantle, a white head (some brown streaking in the non-breeding season), yellow legs, a pale eye, and a black band near the tip of their yellow bill.
One reason that ring-billed gulls have such a broad distribution is that they are very catholic in their diet, including fish, insects, grain, and human garbage. Ring-billed gulls form nesting colonies near water. The nests are minimal, often just a depression in the ground.
Similar in size, short-billed gulls are in the Salish Sea during their non-breeding season. They breed in Alaska and Northwestern Canada. When I started birding, I learned this species as the mew gull. However in 2021, the species was split into the common gull of Eurasia and the short-billed gull of Western North America. The short-billed gull is perhaps a bit smaller than a ring-billed gull with a gray mantle and black primaries, and yellow legs. Unlike the ring-billed gull, the bill of short-billed gull lacks a blank band. Also, the iris of the short-billed gull is brown, while the iris of the ring-billed is yellow.
Heermann’s gulls are another migrant into the Salish Sea during the non-breeding season, albeit from a completely different direction. Almost all Heermann’s gulls breed on Isla Rasa in the Gulf of California. They disperse north along the coast after breeding. When recently-breeding adults arrive in the Salish sea, they have black legs, a red bill with a black tip, a bright-white head, a dark gray mantle, and a gray neck and breast.
As they transition into the non-breeding plumage, the head becomes gray, like the neck and breast.
Bonaparte’s gulls are the smallest gull you are likely to encounter in the Salish Sea. If you encounter them as they migrate north to their breeding grounds in the boreal forests of Alaska and Canada, they will have a black head and bill, a white ring around a dark eye, and bright red legs/feet.
About the time they migrate south to the Salish Sea in late summer, they molt into their non-breeding plumage: white head with a black “ear” spot and the legs a more muted pink.
On their breeding grounds, they will frequently hawk flying insects. In the Salish Sea, they typically target prey that are too small or too elusive for larger gulls, such as larval fish, krill, amphipods, copepods, and mysids that they pluck from the water’s surface. They are mobile enough to hover efficiently just above the water’s surface.
Frankly, I find the large, white-headed gulls in Washington to be an identification nightmare (and I am not alone). On paper, it should be easy to separate the most common species: glaucous-winged gulls, herring gulls, and Western gulls (with a few rarer species like Thayer’s gull, Glaucous gull, or Icelandic gull in the mix). Key characters include mantle color, primary color, bill color and markings, leg color, iris and eye-ring colors, and gape colors. [Frankly, I’ve been wrestling with these identifications for over a year…). Consulting several web sites (see here and here and the Birds of the World) and field guides (e.g., Sibley), I developed a species by characteristic table to help with identification.
Complicating the situation, species hybridize frequently, including multi-generation hybrids (can you say character bouillabaisse…). In addition, some differences are subtle, with one’s perception changing with ambient light. Frankly, these large gulls are confusing and frustrating.
Let’s start with one of the clearer ID from a pair of gulls standing on some floating Nereocystis stipes/bulbs and driftwood.
On my first pass through these images, I lazily called these glaucous-winged gulls. But after putting together the table, I realized my error. First, these gulls do not have pink legs, but greenish-yellow legs and a dark spot next to the red spot on the bill = California gull. This is confirmed by the red eye ring and the orange gape. While California gulls do not breed along the coast, they are known to breed in inland areas, such as islands along the Columbia River, often with ring-billed gulls. These birds are in prime breeding plumage (completely white necks and heads). As the image is from middle July, I don’t know if they are either on their way to their breeding colony or have returned early.
The most common large gull in Puget Sound and the Eastern Strait of Juan de Fuca should be the glaucous-winged gull. This is at the southern end of their breeding range along the coast. A “pure” glaucous-winged gull should have a very light gray mantle and matching primaries.
Unlike western gulls that maintain pure white heads in the non-breeding season, the white head of a non-breeding glaucous-winged gull is streaked with brown feathers.
You will find the western gull out at Westport and extending south along the coast. Unlike the very light mantle and wing primaries of glaucous-winged gulls, western gulls have a darker gray mantle and black primaries.
The differences in the mantle and primary colors should make distinguishing these two species easy. However in the Salish Sea and Grays Harbor (perhaps to Coos Bay), western gulls and glaucous-winged gulls commonly interbreed and their hybrids interbreed. The resulting birds are intermediate, in various degrees, to the parents. Most commonly, they can be identified because the mantle is intermediate in the intensity of gray between the two parent species. Also, the color of the primaries is often darker than the mantle color.
If you look at this picture from a bird ball in the San Juans (we'll ignore the rhinoceros auklet in the background),
the two gulls facing left are more toward the glaucous-winged end of the scale. But the two gulls facing to the right clearly have darker mantles, reflecting some western gull influence (but the primaries of the closest of the two are gray, not black).
Some birders have argued that most of the “glaucous-winged” gulls in the Salish Sea are hybrids based on their intermediate characteristics. Because these hybrids are so common, often outnumbering either parent species, birders have given them their own unofficial name, the “Olympic” gull (see here and here).
This hybrid zone is stable or slowly expanding south. Studies indicate that hybrid gulls do well in the Salish Sea, especially in the face of intense bald eagle predation. However, hybrids are outcompeted further south by purer Western gulls and further north by pure glaucous-winged gulls (see here and here).
And then you have gulls that just make you scratch your head, such as this bird.
Let’s compare this bird to the table. Mantle: darker = not glaucous-winged, closer to Western. Primaries: dark = not glaucous, several options. Bill: yellow with red spot = not California (red and black). Legs: unknown. Iris: pale yellow = not California (red) or glaucous-winged (pink to purple). Eye ring: pink = glaucous-winged. Gape = yellow = herring gull. So, the yellow gape says herring gull, but the pink eye ring is total wrong for herring gull (yellow orange). It cannot be a Western gull (pink gape) or glaucous-winged gull (pink gape) because of the yellow gape. Nothing matches the table. I also looked at other rarer gull species that might be in the the area, such as Thayer’s (reddish-purple eye ring and pale gray mantle) or glaucous (yellow to yellow-orange eye ring, very pale gray mantle) and none of them have the combination of features found on this bird. This is a great picture of an adult gull in breeding plumage, but I can’t confidently identify it.
I’ve spent my professional career researching the biology of sculpins (family Cottidae sensu lato) in the PNW. Because they can be challenging to identify, many researchers just don’t even try. Many pictures that you find online are misidentified. Olympic National Park had a brochure of a tidepool fish that they had identified as a tidepool sculpin (Oligocottus maculatus), but the picture was actually a scaly-head sculpin (Artedius harringtoni). So, I can crack difficult identifications, but those large gulls have left me frustrated. Any help gladly accepted…
Steve
Coach Potter
Life of the Party
Man…that is so cool! I can’t wait to get an owl to photograph some day. They are one of my favorite birds.
Bajema
Life of the Party
Great summary! Identifying gulls is certainly a challenge.
Great blue herons – silent assassins. For such a large bird, great blue herons are such effective, stealthy hunters.
They are lethal when stalking small rodents in grasslands and they are major threats to nearshore fishes. I observed the latter on a recent visit to the Billie Frank Jr. Nisqually Wildlife Refuge. At low tide, this great blue heron speared a staghorn sculpin and a mess of Ulva (sea lettuce).
Apparently, the heron didn’t want any vegetables and freed the stag horn from the Ulva. It dropped the fish and stabbed it several times
before turning it in its bill
and swallowing the fish whole.
Lunch completed.
Steve
They are lethal when stalking small rodents in grasslands and they are major threats to nearshore fishes. I observed the latter on a recent visit to the Billie Frank Jr. Nisqually Wildlife Refuge. At low tide, this great blue heron speared a staghorn sculpin and a mess of Ulva (sea lettuce).
Apparently, the heron didn’t want any vegetables and freed the stag horn from the Ulva. It dropped the fish and stabbed it several times
before turning it in its bill
and swallowing the fish whole.
Lunch completed.
Steve
Fall shorebirds at Nisqually NWR. The return of shorebirds from their northern breeding grounds is a sure sign of fall at Billie Frank Jr. Nisqually NWR. All are taking advantage of the abundant food resources at the refuge, especially the mud flats. For some species this is a pit stop to fuel their migration farther south. For others, the refuge may be their overwintering area.
Whimbrels clearly fit in the former group. They are large shorebirds with long curved bills. They appear in spring and fall in transit.
They breed in Alaska and Northern Canada and winter along the coast of the U.S. to South America. Along the East Coast, they are adept at extracting fiddler crabs from their burrows with their long curved bill. At Nisqually, they appeared to be focused on shore crabs that were hiding in crevices in the exposed mud flats.
On the other end of the size spectrum are the “peeps”, aka sandpipers. They travel in skittish flocks, sometimes with mixed species.
They will erupt in flight at the slightest perceived threat. Typically, there are at least some sandpipers at Nisqually through the winter into early spring at least.
While sandpipers can be a challenge to identify, least sandpipers are relatively easy to distinguish because of their yellow legs.
A few of the least sandpipers still have their brown-tipped breeding plumage.
Most least sandpipers were in their drabber, all-gray non-breeding plumage.
Western sandpipers are slightly larger than least sandpipers. They have black legs. For a sandpiper, they have a long drooping bill. Almost all of the western sandpipers still had the golden back feathers of their breeding plumage. These golden-brown feathers create a V-shape across the “shoulders”.
When they complete their molt to the non-breeding plumage, their back feathers will be a uniform light gray color.
Yellowlegs, primarily greater yellowlegs, can be found (and heard with their ringing calls when in flight) almost year-round at Nisqually.
They are often solitary hunters. Most commonly, I see them picking up tiny prey from the water’s edge. But occasionally, they encounter larger prey, like this shore crab.
You can hear (more often than seeing) killdeers year-round. On my last visit, a helpful birder allowed me to use his spotting scope to view a Pacific golden plover, a rare visitor. While I have not seen them yet, other shorebirds that will overwinter at Nisqually include dowitchers, dunlins, and Wilson’s snipes.
Steve
Whimbrels clearly fit in the former group. They are large shorebirds with long curved bills. They appear in spring and fall in transit.
They breed in Alaska and Northern Canada and winter along the coast of the U.S. to South America. Along the East Coast, they are adept at extracting fiddler crabs from their burrows with their long curved bill. At Nisqually, they appeared to be focused on shore crabs that were hiding in crevices in the exposed mud flats.
On the other end of the size spectrum are the “peeps”, aka sandpipers. They travel in skittish flocks, sometimes with mixed species.
They will erupt in flight at the slightest perceived threat. Typically, there are at least some sandpipers at Nisqually through the winter into early spring at least.
While sandpipers can be a challenge to identify, least sandpipers are relatively easy to distinguish because of their yellow legs.
A few of the least sandpipers still have their brown-tipped breeding plumage.
Most least sandpipers were in their drabber, all-gray non-breeding plumage.
Western sandpipers are slightly larger than least sandpipers. They have black legs. For a sandpiper, they have a long drooping bill. Almost all of the western sandpipers still had the golden back feathers of their breeding plumage. These golden-brown feathers create a V-shape across the “shoulders”.
When they complete their molt to the non-breeding plumage, their back feathers will be a uniform light gray color.
Yellowlegs, primarily greater yellowlegs, can be found (and heard with their ringing calls when in flight) almost year-round at Nisqually.
They are often solitary hunters. Most commonly, I see them picking up tiny prey from the water’s edge. But occasionally, they encounter larger prey, like this shore crab.
You can hear (more often than seeing) killdeers year-round. On my last visit, a helpful birder allowed me to use his spotting scope to view a Pacific golden plover, a rare visitor. While I have not seen them yet, other shorebirds that will overwinter at Nisqually include dowitchers, dunlins, and Wilson’s snipes.
Steve
McLane Creek 5 October 2025. Now that fall is here, the ducks have molted into their Sunday best. In one of the most dramatic changes, the drab wood duck drakes in eclipse plumage (note the red eyes)
have molted into their gaudy breeding plumage.
The hens have spruced themselves up too from summer
to winter.
And in their best, hens and drakes have paired up.
We’ll see how many of these relationships survive the rigors of the fall hunting season and winter to reach the spring.
[At Nisqually NWR, the mallard drakes have gone through the same transformation, from eclipse drab
to breeding fabulous.]
Steve
have molted into their gaudy breeding plumage.
The hens have spruced themselves up too from summer
to winter.
And in their best, hens and drakes have paired up.
We’ll see how many of these relationships survive the rigors of the fall hunting season and winter to reach the spring.
[At Nisqually NWR, the mallard drakes have gone through the same transformation, from eclipse drab
to breeding fabulous.]
Steve
McLane Creek 5 October 2025. I would have thought that it was late in the season for adult birds feeding fledglings. So, I was surprised to find a pied-billed grebe chick begging incessantly to its parent to be fed.
The adult has the typical vertical black stripe on its bill of the breeding season.
The chick has stripes on its face. It was perhaps 3/4ers the size of its parent.
The chick shadowed the parent and continuously vocalized for food. On some dives, the parent appeared to pass small food items to the chick. Near the end of our visit, the parent came up with a slimy sculpin, Cottus cognatus.
But it wasn’t in a sharing frame of mind and gulped the sculpin down itself.
Steve
The adult has the typical vertical black stripe on its bill of the breeding season.
The chick has stripes on its face. It was perhaps 3/4ers the size of its parent.
The chick shadowed the parent and continuously vocalized for food. On some dives, the parent appeared to pass small food items to the chick. Near the end of our visit, the parent came up with a slimy sculpin, Cottus cognatus.
But it wasn’t in a sharing frame of mind and gulped the sculpin down itself.
Steve
I would saw this post is shady