Luke's Birding Pages

January 7, 2006

Venice Beach State Park, Half Moon Bay, San Mateo County, California

First found by Alan S. Hopkins and Kevin McKereghan, this probable first-winter Slaty-backed Gull bears a distinct resemblance to a first-winter Slaty-backed at this same location last winter (2004-05), found by Alvaro Jaramillo. Eric Preston, Hugh Cotter, David Armstrong, Mark W. Eaton, Paul Saraceni and I all spent time with this bird on he morning of January 7, along with thousands of Western and Glaucous-winged gulls, a couple of Glaucous Gulls, and a smattering of Thayer's, California and Heerman's Gulls at Venice Beach.

Like Al Jaramillo's gull of last year, this was a large, bulky gull, larger than the nearby Western Gulls and approaching the size of the Glaucous-winged Gulls. This bird did not have as deep a "keeled" look as last year's, but it was a large bird. Note the streaking in the head. Overall, the plumage is a cinnamony brown (it appears cooler in these photos than in life, an artifact of my digiscoping no doubt), with the primaries brown rather than black. This bird has the smudginess around the eye that Jaramillo termed the "mascara look." Like last year's bird, this bird also had a relatively parallel sided bill, with little gonyeadal angle.

Note the pale inner primary "window" in these two spread-wing shots.

Here is another shot of the tail as the bird and 10,000 other gulls flushed from the beach.

Photographs © Luke W. Cole

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