[obol] Around Washington County (04/05/08)

[DAVID IRONS]

Stefan,

I looked at the gull on your blog and I would have to agree that this bird looks to be a Glaucous X Herring (i.e. "Nelson's" Gull).  Give the date, this is likely a bird nearing the end of its first cycle and thus it is starting to show gray in the mantle. Howell and Dunn suggest that each cycle starts with a primary molt, but that other sets of feathers are molting almost continually on on gulls. On this bird, I think we can assume that the primaries are about 9-10 month old and therefore faded.  Nearly any immature gull one sees right now has extremely worn and faded wing coverts and flight feathers.  Noah Strycker and I spent a day at Newport a couple weeks ago and the place was overrun with "mystery" pale gulls.  Most were just very worn Glaucous-winged or Glaucous-winged X Western intergrades.

I'll stop now before Mary Anne's eyes start rolling back her head.  Of course, she probably hit the delete button about 45 seconds ago.

Dave Irons
Eugene, OR
From: greenfant at hotmail.com
To: obol at lists.oregonstate.edu
Date: Sun, 6 Apr 2008 13:50:37 -0400
Subject: [obol] Around Washington County (04/05/08)








Michael Fleming from WA state, Mike "Art" Marsh and I toured selected sites around the county in the rain yesterday.

 

We found Acorn Woodpeckers at the NE corner of Orenco Elementary School and on the southern edge of Dawson Ck Corparate Park in Hillsboro. 

 

At Fernhill Wetlands, Barn and Cliff Swallows are back. A single male Common Yellowthroat must also just have arrived. The Great Horned Owl fledgling(s) seem to be in the nest, even though this was hard to see. The most interesting bird for me was a Nelson-ish Gull in the parking lot. I uploaded a couple of pictures on my blog at http://birdmeister.wordpress.com/. Feel free to comment.

 

3 Eurasian Collared-Doves were at Porter & Verboort in Verboort.

 

Killin Wetlands at around 6pm had 2-3 calling American Bitterns, Northern Rough-winged Swallows, another male Common Yellowthroat and several Cinnamon Teal.

 

Finally, we managed to get a single calling Western Screech-Owl at Hagg Lake from across a clearcut just before it got dark about 1.4mi up Sain Creek Rd. My overall impression is that most owls have stopped calling. With the exception of Western Screech. On a pefect night last Tuesday, I had 2 calling birds at the Nelson Ck Rd turnoff, but nothing else.

 

Stefan Schlick

Hillsboro, OR

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