Gutsy Gulls

Didn't get for a walk until quite late in the afternoon and was having trouble finding anything to report on today until I watched an eagle attempting to come in for a landing and being chased off by a bunch of gulls....so thought ah hah!  lets make today's subject ' gulls!'

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but before we get into details, I did make it to the log bay today and there are sure a lot of salmon still there, both live and dead.

also a few Mallard like the female preening in the above photo, and a Great Blue Heron and I have no idea what is with the tire...I assume it must have been laying in that water for years and with the water levels so low someone must have spotted it and decided to upright it...first of all to do so would mean they were walking in a salmon spawning channel which is a definite no no, and secondly why anyone would think that people would want to see this is beyond comprehension. 

so to get back to gulls, Mew Gulls, like the one above were the most predominant species right at the log bay....at least today.  Mew Gulls are the smaller 'daintier' looking gulls, often seen swimming in a tight circle and then rising up and diving under to grab anything stirred up.

The most common gull out there, and there are thousands, are the Glaucous-wing Gull, like this guy above....they have no black on them at all so easily identified.

If you spot a gull with black wing tips and a light coloured eye, like this one, chances are it will be a Herring Gull.

Then, just to add to the confusion you sometimes can spot a hybrid....

like this one....a cross between a Western Gull and a Glaucous-wing Gull....and then we won't even go into the fact that all the birds pictured here are adults, young birds look completely different.

Just one last note for today....it has been pretty boring 'duck wise' so far this fall but the last few days a few....

Northern Shoveler  have shown up ....the ones in the above photo being females.  Oh and that is another Mew Gull in the foreground.