western gull ~ 07/07/14 ~ at home

western gull chick

Larus occidentalis

I encountered a small surprise as I headed to the laundry room.  Looks like one of this year's Lord of the Dance exited its nest and fell from our roof a little too early.  It's a cute bugger.

ps 08/14/14 - I should note that this little one did not survive the week.  We found it without its head and disemboweled on the side of the road out front.  My friend Bee thought it could have be an opossum that killed the chick.  Over the course of several days, bits went missing until only a pile of feathers remained.  Gross, I know, but hey, it happens.

plovers and western gull ~ 09/01/12 ~ Asilomar Beach

western snowy plover (aka Kentish plover)
Charadrius alexandrinus nivosus (aka Charadrius nivosus)

western snowy plover and semipalmated plover
Charadrius alexandrinus nivosus and Charadrius semipalmatus

western gull and semipalmated plover
Larus occidentalis and Charadrius semipalmatus

Bird IDs do not come easy to me, especially small shorebirds and songbirds. They simply do not have the courtesy to hold still while I try to get a good look. It doesn't help that I'm only armed with an 8-year-old point-and-shoot with a max 4.3 digital zoom. Binoculars and field guides are usually left in the car or at home. Then, the most challenging aspect is birds change their looks more often than Lady Gaga, depending on their age or time of year.

When I took these pictures I had no idea the first was a snowy plover, since the only time I recognized one it had its nesting outfit on with dark patches on its crown, behind the eye, and above the shoulder. I was surprised to see in my enlarged pictures the one I captured had pink, sky blue, lime, and golden yellow bangles - quite the fashion statement! That was my first clue it might be a snowy plover, because I know they're closely monitored due to their federal status as being threatened.

I'm almost ashamed to admit, but I assumed the second small bird was a killdeer (Charadrius vociferus). As I was looking at Cornell's All About Birds site for snowy plovers, I noticed under similar species that killdeers have "two distinct chest bands." Erg. Semipalmated plover was not even on my radar since most pictures online only show its breeding plumage. Wilson's plover (Charadrius wilsonia) markings looked similar, but the bill was too big and it's found nowhere near here. I thus began my search of the various kinds of plovers. There are a heck of a lot of plovers out there in the world.

Finally, for the gull, I now know to first look at its leg color. Pink legs narrow down the possibilities for which kinds of gulls are found here in Monterey this time of year. Add in the dark grey of this juvenile, and I can only make a best guess.

Heavy sigh. I pulled out all of my bird books and looked at all of the bird links on my online ID resources page. I ended up getting sidetracked looking at other birds. I'd really like to find a comprehensive bird site that clearly shows the various plumage and coloring like some of my bird books. It's a process that's sometimes frustrating and other times enjoyable.

western gull ~ 07/27/12 ~ at home

western gull fledgling

Larus occidentalis

Ever since we got back from our road trip in early July, we knew we had a gull nest on our roof from all the calls that echoed down our kitchen vent and evening stomping on the ceiling that sounded like a production of Lord of the Dance. This is the second year in a row we've had a nest, and I worry it won't be the last. It's not well publicized online, but western gulls here have taken to nesting on rooftops in addition to their typical rocky island breeding spots.

We woke in the middle of Tuesday night from such a ruckus of screeching and trampling that we wondered if a raccoon had managed to get on the roof and attack the nest. The next morning, I had to shoo 3 fledglings out of the driveway while 2 adults cried and looked down at me from the roof. Western gull fledglings are not the swiftest at moving out of the way of moving cars. Lighthouse Avenue through New Monterey (a business district just up from the infamous Cannery Row and is one of only 2 publicly available roads out of Pacific Grove) is frequently littered this time of year with flattened fledglings. It fascinates me that drivers will patiently stop for a family of Canada geese crossing the road but will not even slow down for young gulls wandering aimlessly around.

Fluffy feathers rained down from the roof for a couple days like some sort of pillow fight had occurred while the 3 fledglings stayed at the end of our driveway. One of them could barely stand up, let alone fly.  Maybe it broke its leg from the fall?  The one shown above was testing its wings out and had awkwardly managed to perch in our oak tree and then to the Douglas-fir. One of the parents watched from the roof and called out as if in encouragement. Shortly after I took these pictures, this young gull crashed through the branches to the ground.

belted kingfisher and western gull ~ 11/12/11 ~ Elkhorn Slough

belted kingfisher (below) and western gull (above)
Ceryle alcyon and Larus occidentalis

Phew! I'm done posting about non-native invasive plants for this hike. I realized I had neglected covering the most obvious weeds at Elkhorn Slough and needed to rectify the situation. In a similar vein, considering this estuary has so many birds, I always try to post at least one bird photo from an outing, even if it's crappy - I'm talking about the photos, not any particular bird... but now that I think about it... Unfortunately, many of the birds are far enough away that my little point-and-shoot can only cough up fuzzy, zoomed-to-the-max shots.

We came across two hikers with large binoculars, loudly ooing and awing over the various birds across the water. It was quite entertaining to hear their excitement. I overheard they were looking for a belted kingfisher that they thought had left the area. I casually looked down and pointed out, "Is that the kingfisher you're looking for?" As Andy and I walked away, we chuckled how sometimes people are so focused looking through their binoculars that they're unable to spot the bird nearest to them. And, in the relative quiet away from the hikers, we thoroughly enjoyed the amazing afternoon bird chorus that carried across the water. I wish I could have recorded it for this blog. For an incredible blog that does have various animal recordings, check out The Music of Nature.

ps - I'm considering organizing Nature ID birds a little better than I have. At this point, I'm undecided if I should do Order or Family, like is featured at BirdWeb, or more loose groupings based on shape, like is featured at Bird Friends of San Diego County and whatBird.com. For you birder followers out there, I'd appreciate hearing your opinion. Thanks!

western gull ~ 08/11/11 ~ Wharf No. 2

adult breeding western gull
Larus occidentalis

third-cycle plumage western gull
Larus occidentalis

This is my first serious attempt at identifying gulls. I stopped calling them sea gulls ever since I saw them in Ohio far away from any sea. Please ID the second picture above or correct me if I misidentified the other gulls. Click on the pictures to enlarge.

Gulls have been on my brain and my roof for the past few months. We had a nest over our kitchen with the noise echoing down our range hood vent. I can only assume they were western gulls. Not only were the juveniles extremely noisy calling for food at all hours of the day and night, they also seemed to like to wrestle around. I swear sometimes it sounded like an elephant was doing a jig up there. Plus, in the past few weeks we've noticed a huge number of dead gulls on the city streets. Most looked like juveniles who must not have known better than to get out of the way of a large object speeding towards them.

ps 08/23/11 - This post originally contained 4 pictures. I split this up into two posts now that I know the identifications: western gull and Heermann's gull. Make sure to check out the embedded links in the IDs under each photo.

I was thoroughly confused by the second picture above and simply labeled it as an unidentified gull. Gulls seem to go through an extraordinary number of variations to reach adult breeding plumage. It takes western gulls four years! Even though written descriptions for a couple other species seemed to match, I could not find pictorial evidence with grey wings, dusty grey face, odd bill markings, and bright pink legs like that shown above.

So, I asked Don Roberson, author of Monterey Birds, to help me with the ID. Here's what he said, "your second gull is a Western Gull in 3rd cycle plumage [e.g., thin ring-around-the-bill, a bit of duskiness on head]." Additionally, he continued in reply to Jim's and my comments below, "As to possible hybrid on the 3rd cycle bird, I don't see any obvious signs of it, but the date you took the photo would be important. We get lots of hybrid or intergrade Glaucous-wing X Western here in winter, and the date span is about early September to early May. We don't have a confirmed hybrid-type from summer, but it would be possible. But I don't see any signs of hybridization or intergradation here (hybrids are when Western breeds with Gl-wing; intergrades are when hybrids breed with other hybrids and there is gene flow... complex subject). As you probably know, there is a variation of color in the back of Western Gulls north to south, with southern birds being darker. I would guess that the 3rd cycle bird is not from the local breeding population, based on back color, but it could easily have come from the Farallones." Thank you, Don!

Steve Borichevsky at Shooting My Universe from Massachusetts visits the Monterey area frequently. He has a nice series of blog posts on the western gull.

planted gull

Sometimes, I just want to post a picture without having to look up stuff. This gull gave me a good laugh today. I wondered if it had made a nest in this planter behind the historical Doc Ricketts lab on Cannery Row.

western gull ~ 06/25/09 ~ Morro Strand Beach

western gull
Larus occidentalis

I generally don't take pictures of the animals or plants that are so common in the area that I usually fail to notice them anymore. However, this gull caught my attention with its behavior. It was stamping the sand and feeding on whatever was coming up in the water-soaked sand. Fascinating! I likened it to the use of tools by some birds to get insects from holes in trees.

Western gulls are making whoopie on our roof right now. What a racket! I remember hearing them last year, but I never thought much about why they were making so much noise. This past Tuesday, as we were walking back from the farmer's market, we witnessed 2 gulls at it on another roof. They had already made a nest near the chimney. Those people living in that house are in for a noisy summer!

ps 04/16/10 - I heard my first racket for the year of gull whoopie on our roof. Like I've said before, everything seems to be a bit early this year,