[obol] Gulls and Caspian Tern in Nothern California

[David Bailey]

 From the North Bay bird list...of interest due to the recent super 
duper early CASPIAN TERN sighting by Steve Warner in Seaside (I spoke 
with him last week; he saw the bird flying up the river right past his 
house) and the recent fun we must all be having with the gull discussion 
and gull watching.

David

David C. Bailey
Seaside, Oregon
baileydc at pdx.edu

Watch gulls, admire gull beauty, name a few, let many more go. We do 
not, even collectively have enough data (aka: information; evidence) to 
allow us to define them all based on our toothpick and glue model for 
organism groups we call species.

Aka: what do you call progeny of a Western x Glaucous-winged Gull that 
mated with a Herring x Glaucous Gull; and would you recognize a 
progenitor of such a mating anyway?


 From the North Bay bird list, fide Sile"rs web page:

> Subject: RETERNS
> From: "Rich Stallcup" <rstallcup AT prbo.org>
> Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2007 15:45:56 -0800
>
> GOOD AFTERNOON NORTHBAY BIRDERS-
>
>  
>
> Late yesterday afternoon while I was doing a Clapper Rail survey two
>
> Caspian Terns flew over Santa Margarita Marsh in San Rafael.
>
> This is just south of  the Las Gallinas sewer ponds. They
>
> were awwaaakking and seemed to be rehearsing an aerial
>
> courtship dance.  This is nine days earlier than my earliest-ever
>
> Marin spring arrival  (the two December records  are  anomalous).
>
>  
>
> A 2006-model Bald Eagle has been around the south end of Tomales
>
> Bay (sometimes scopable from behind the Inverness Store) eating ducks.
>
>  
>
> Some of us chased the Slaty-backed Gulls reported  over the weekend
>
> and even though we were  promptly at the scene, all we found was
>
> an intergraded convolution of taxanomic riddles. That is what usually
>
> turns-up when we look too long and too hard at too many GULLS!
>
>  
>
> Thanks for all the good you do....RICH