[SBB] Saturday morning

[Al Eisner <[[email protected]]>]

    This morning, after visiting the still-present COMMON LOON at the
southeast corner of Hwy 85 and the Almaden Expressway, my intent had been
to make another (probably futile) check for Big Bird at Calero.  But it
looked rather foggy down that way, so I skipped that stop and headed
for my primary target area, the EEC and salt pond A16 in Alviso.

    My visit there started very well:  as I drove in, I found the male
RUFF just north of the EEC entrance road (in the stretch where there is
a pond on the south side).  I got very good binocular views from my car
for 10 minutes; it was still present when I moved on at 9:30.

    On A16, I saw 2 CACKLING GEESE with 6 Canadas; I think they were
Aleutian, having dark breasts and white rings at the base of the neck,
and not particularly-stubby bills.  All 8 flew over to the Marsh, but
later I again encountered 2 Cacklings in A16, looking pretty much the
same, so I'm guessing these were repeats.  The second island had
2 SANDERLINGs foraging, and a SAY'S PHOEBE was working the levee.
THere were still about 45 AMERICAN WHITE PELICANs on the first island.

    Both on my way out the levee and my way back, the second island had
a WHITE GULL -- Glaucous-like, but not obviously matching the descriptions
of other white gulls reported this month.  It was usually resting, so it
was difficult to assess the comparative size, but I felt it was comparable
to nearby Herring Gulls, and decidedly larger than nearby Californias.
It had pure white primaries, while the wing coverts had fine pale-gray
(or pale buffy-gray) markings. The tail was banded white and quite pale
buffy-gray, except the distal inch or so seemed mainly white.  There was
also some pale-dusky shading around the eye (nothing prominent).  The legs
were pink, and the eye seemed quite dark.  The rear belly and (when it
preened) the rump seemed darker grayish than I would have expected; I
didn't get a clear look at the undertail coverts.  And the bill had its
basal 2/3 pink and tip black.  But the demarcation of the two colors on
the bill was not sharp or straight-across (as it has been on young Glaucous
Gulls in my experience), and there were small spots/streaks of dark on the
pink portion.  Also, the bill bulged toward the tip, although it was not
the massive bill of a young Glaucous-winged.  Thus, based on the bill's
appearance, I'm hesitant to call this bird a pure Glaucous Gull, although
the rest of the plumage I observed looked pretty good for that species.
Any comments either from experts or from others who have observed white
gulls on A16 recently?
								Al Eisner

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