Explaining to do

Okay, it seems I have some explaining to do. I my last post, I thought I had found a Thayer's Gull. Several things about the bird didn't seem quite right to me, and I thought it might even be a Glaucous-winged Gull, which is much rarer in Utah (although Thayer's are also pretty rare here). So, I sent photos and videos to several list-serves requesting help in my identification. I received responses from nine different people, and as any student of the gulls would guess, there was little consensus. Opinions ranged from pure Thayer's Gull to pure Glaucous-winged Gull to pure Slaty-backed Gull, but the most common opinion was that I had photographed a hybrid between a Glaucous-winged Gull and a Herring Gull. This was one of the possibilities I had considered, but it wasn't the identification I thought was most likely. Even after hearing all the opinions of the experts, I am still not confident in identifying this bird, and it will stay in my records as "Unidentified gull, probable Glaucous-winged x Herring hybrid".

Someone asked me before if it's embarrassing to publicly misidentify a bird. If I had called this something outlandish, then maybe I would be embarrassed. But gulls are notoriously difficult, and I feel pretty good about how I did with this one. In fact, David Sibley says of the Thayer's Gull, "Very difficult to distinguish from hybrids of other large gulls such as Herring x Glaucous-winged." After all, if the gulls can't even tell each other apart when it's time to find a mate, how can we be expected to sort them out as juveniles!

Okay, so I'm not counting the Thayer's Gull that I posted about before. Then why is Thayer's Gull still in my year list at the right? Well, I feel more confident in the identification of a different bird that we saw on the same day was a Thayer's Gull. One photo of this bird is above: the Thayer's is on the left and a California Gull is on the right. This Thayer's Gull has darker wingtips than my previous mystery gull, but it has a distinctly small, round head and petite bill, two traits I was looking for on the mystery gull but was having trouble with. So, the photo may be wrong, but I still think I saw a Thayer's Gull that day. Although I'd be happy to hear comments from the experts about this gull as well.

Evening Grosbeaks and Thayer's Gull

It's been a while since my last post, but it's not because I haven't been birding. I have. Desperately. I'm so close to the record that I've spent ten or fifteen hours each weekend for the last two or three weeks birding, plus several hours during the week wherever I can fit it in. But, of course, the new birds are now few and far between.

On Friday, a school holiday, Stephanie and I hiked around Swan Peak looking for some of the mountain species I still haven't been able to find like Pine Grosbeak, White-winged Crossbill, and Evening Grosbeak. We didn't find any of these, but we did find nine Dusky Grouse, a species I took a special trip for a few weeks ago.

Yesterday Craig Fosdick and I birded all day, from the south end of the county to the northern border with Idaho. We were mostly looking for species that winter on the ocean but get lost inland this time of year, like the scoters, Long-tailed Ducks, and Pacific Loons. We didn't find any of these either, but while we were scanning Hyrum Reservoir, Craig heard a single call note above and quickly pointed out a flock of eight Evening Grosbeaks passing high overhead. The birds continued out over the reservoir, and we never saw them land. These birds are probably part of another kind of migration happening right now: the vertical migration. Rather than flying from north to south, these birds may have come from higher elevations down into the valley. Other vertical migrants we found in the valley today included Red-breasted Nuthatches and a Townsend's Solitaire.

Today I wanted to take a quick trip to Sue's Ponds to look for shorebirds, because I'm still hoping I can pick up a Dunlin or maybe something completely unexpected. The shorebirds were there in good numbers, and included ninety Long-billed Dowitchers, eight Pectoral Sandpipers, and one Stilt Sandpiper. But the highlight was not a shorebird, it was another surprise gull: at least two Thayer's Gulls (one is shown in the photo above - note the pink legs; brownish, not black, wingtips; and the relatively rounded head). I thought I might be able to find this species later in the winter, but I didn't expect them this time of year.