Surprisingly I only saw two Boneparte's Gulls during my two and half week trip of mostly looking at gulls. The first, a first-winter, was a brief fly past at the Salton Sea and this first-winter at the mouth of the harbour at Bodega Bay towards the end of the trip. It lingered around for about an hour towards dusk but was never seen on the deck. Further Boneparte's Gulls can be seen by clicking
California - November 2009
Boneparte's, Heermann's and Mew Gulls
American Herring Gull
Western Gull
Yellow-footed Gull
Albino Gull sp.
Heermann's Gull
Boneparte's Gulls
Mew Gull
Ring-billed Gull
California Gull
Thayer's Gull
Oh dear, west coast gulls. Many are actually pretty straight forward, Bonepartes, Heermann's, Mew and Ring-billed, in all ages whilst the larger species can often provide an identification challenge. Typical birds are obviously not much of a problem for the most part however as large gulls in Europe there is a vast array of variations and coupled with the melting pot of hybrids, of various generations, not all is as straight forward as one would hope. Is it a Glaucous-winged Gull at the darker end of the scale to be a genuine bird or is it a hybrid? Is that first-winter dark gull with paler wing-coverts just a variation or is there mixed blood at play. Because of this and the fact I needed two of the gulls for my world gulls list it was major part in me returning to California.
As there variation seems to infinite I have shown on a few of the birds for each species whilst added more to the gulls identification pages which can be reach by clicking on the link on the relevant species or by going directly to the gulls main page by clicking
Glaucous-winged Gull
Hybrids
Heermann's Gulls were only found along the coast with the first half a dozen at Morro Rock. More were seen along the coastline north of Morro Bay but it was the coastline of Point Pinos area that really had the numbers, several flocks sat up containing 30-40 birds. The adults here are from Salinas River Mouth whilst the dark brown juvenile was from Morro Rock car park. Further images of Heermann's Gulls can be seen by clicking
One of the gulls I most wanted to see and photograph Mew Gull was noted on the coast in varying numbers. The first were around the large lakes in Golden Gate Park on the first morning, the first few images below are from here, whilst several were at Point Pinos. However it was Bodega Bay harbour that held the largest concentrations with several hundred present feeding amongst the seaweed on the west side.
My previous trip had only produced two distant in flight only birds so these went to redress that. For more pictures of Mew Gull click
All of the following Mew Gulls were photographed at Bodega Bag
I was very surprised how dusky first-winter Mew Gull was in comparison with first-winter Common Gull back in the UK. As can be seen most birds are pretty uniformly pale dusky brown with little contrast between the upper-parts, under-parts, wing-coverts and tertials. The primaries are the darkest aspect about the plumage which still have obvious white tips and fringes.
There was still variation between birds but for the most part they overall darker than European birds.