[mou] Glaucous Gull, Duluth/Superior

[Dan Amerman]

Hello Everyone,

Another dawn at the Superior Entry between Duluth and
Superior, and another fascinating gull.  This one I
first saw about 8:30 in the morning, it was among
several hundred Herring Gulls that flew as I walked
the breakwater to the lighthouse.  As I watched it fly
around and away, I saw that it was substantively
bigger and bulkier than the Herring Gulls, and very,
very white – even for a Glaucous Gull.  Unmarked, all
white wingtips, and the only color on the whole bird
seemed to be mantles and coverts that looked just
slightly smudged with very light brown.

It landed on the beach and I spent about half an hour
digiscoping it, and studying it through the scope.  It
has to be either first or second winter – Sibley shows
second winter as being lighter, but most of the photos
I found on gull sites and so forth on the web show
darker second winter birds. Either way, this one would
be in palest 10% among the immature Glaucous Gull
photos I could find.  It has a bicolored bill, pink
with a black tip, but I was too far away, and lighting
was too poor, to see the tip of the tip, or the iris
color.  Conditions were really much too poor for
photography as well, but I tried anyway, and despite
the poor quality, find the one linked below to be
interesting.  It captures three species close to each
other for a size comparions:  the immature Glaucous
Gull, a mature Ring-billed Gull, and a juvenile
Herring Gull.

http://www.bytephoto.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=30147

There were the most Herring Gulls out there that I
have seen all fall, but no Thayer’s (or Great
Black-backed) this time – or even loons or scoters. 
There were Dunlins, Sanderlings and American Coots at
Wisconsin Point, and Black-bellied Plovers and Horned
Grebes at Park Point.

Dan Amerman
Duluth, MN



		
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