As Tiffany Manger posted we had the Laughing Gull at the Idaho Point
Mudflats around 6pm tonight. We had searched in vain at South Beach State
Park. She had walked well passed the third creek south of the main parking
lot. The gulls were showing up on the flats with the tide going out. I had
first seen a "black-headed" gull on the flats, and then another and another.
In all 7 Bonaparte's Gulls. Scanning a couple of minutes later I saw
another with dark wings with black wing tips and no white separating them.
The primaries were dark underneath, as well. It flew around the SW corner of
the bay for a while before landing about 100 yards in front of us. It had
one leg. We could see the prominent eye ring and a long red bill, thicker
at the tip. It remained for about 10 minutes and then after checking out
some shorebirds we looked back and the Laughing Gull was gone.
Along Nye Beach in the afternoon there were 151 Whimbrel. 95 were there
yesterday and 80 on Thursday.
Tom Crabtree
