Sitka Nature

The forecast was for wet and windy weather, but when it hadn’t arrived by late this morning, I decided to get down to the park before it got wet. Connor and Rowan joined me and collected some rather large sticks (cut lumber in Rowan’s case) they were carrying home. Rowan noticed that dragging her 2×2 was leaving a trail on the beach. When we got in to the woods I suggested we play a game where I drag the stick, and they follow the trail to find me. They did better than I expected, and it was a hit with them. We took turns dragging the stick and hiding. Rowan is kind of funny about hiding. She does a good job hiding, but didn’t really let us actually find her. As soon as we got close, she would pop out and say ‘boo’, or something like it.

This afternoon I went down to the quad for frisbee. Connor came along as well.

Weather: It was pretty breezy throughout the day, though the winds did not seem to be sustained where I was. The area of Totem Park and campus often seems to be in a bit of a wind shadow, however. A little rain fell while we were at the park, more fell while we were playing frisbee. There were a few pretty good showers later in the evening.

Birds: The tide was in a bit at the park and so the gulls were a little more concentrated, but resting rather than feeding. In among the gulls was a Slaty-backed Gull. There were a lot of gulls up in the river also.

We saw a Great-blue Heron on the western beach, then another one (possibly the same one) in the estuary later.

Conspicuously missing were the ducks that have been at the river mouth. If they were in the estuary grasses, they were very well hidden, as I only saw gulls and the heron there. I’m not sure where they all went, perhaps to the other side of the bay across from the river mouth to get away from the gulls. I did see a Common Merganser fly by before we made it to the river mouth.

A Northern Flicker flew over while we were playing frisbee.

There were quite a few Robins and Starlings around campus and the house this afternoon.

Other Notes: I took pictures of a couple more mushrooms at the park. One of them (shown above), was in the same place as last year. The other one was a species I don’t think I have paid any attention to previously.

There were a couple of places where Amanita muscaria today. It seems to be a down year for it, or perhaps it’s just later than usual? Typically there’s a bunch of it that grows at the bottom of Hillcrest Drive, but I’ve not seen much there at all this year.

Slaty-backed Gull with Glaucous-winged, Herring, and Thayer’s Gulls all nearby.

Today I saw a very dark mantled gull that I am reasonably confident is a Slaty-backed Gull. The heavily streaked head with quite pale eyes and pink legs seem to leave no other alternative, as far as I can tell. Gulls of the Americas suggests that Western Gulls can have pale eyes, but they don’t have streaking, and none of the pictures of Western Gulls in the book showed eyes that were anything close to as pale as those on this bird. I’m trying to gain a little more understanding of gull identification, so I decided to spend a little more time with it and have some observations/questions.

Slaty-backed Gull (click on thumbnails for larger)

This bird seems to be pretty much an adult, though there are some elements that are not so adult-like. Perhaps this is a fourth-cycle type gull then? The beak seems quite pale at the base, the red gonys spot seems to be somewhat faint, there is some darkness still in the tail feathers, and the some of the tertials and primary coverts seem to be a bit brownish relative the the rest of the dark gray feathers. It also seems that the outer primaries are not fully grown yet.

The other question I have relates to a bird that was photographed at the park almost two weeks ago by Geof Smith. I think it is also a Slaty-backed Gull, and I’m curious if it is possible to tell whether they are different birds, or whether they are most likely the same bird.

(Photos by Geof Smith)

The gull Geof photographed was further away, (so the crop/enlargement is somewhat blurry) but it appears that it might have somewhat less streaking than the gull I saw. It also seems to have shorter primaries. I am not sure how fast the feathers grow, so I do not know whether the apparent difference in length is reasonable for two weeks difference in growth. It seems more likely to me that these are the same birds, rather than two different birds of this species. That said, at the very least, this is the second Slaty-backed Gull I have seen in Sitka this year (April 2007 Slaty-backed Gull), and the third since the beginning of 2006 (January 2006 Slaty-backed Gull).