North of Hwy 26 at the weigh station(mp 55?)1pm Jan 31
7 ad Glaucous-winged Gull
7 ad Thayer's Gull
4 ad Herring Gull
1 first year Nelson's Gull
(Glaucous X Herring)
1 first year Cook Inlet Gull
(Herring X Glaucous-winged)
South of Hwy 26 between Dairy Creek and freeway overpass
20 Tundra Swan, 88 yesterday in the same spot, 220 last week
South of RR tracks, west of Harrison Cemetery 3:30pm Jan 30
155 gulls:
1 ad Ring-billed
1 ad Mew (the only Mew I have seen around Portland all winter)
2 ad Western Gull
only 15-20 % underage gulls, of which many were Thayer's. There's an
observer bias here because 1st yr Thayer's stood out against the dark soil
of a large ploughed field
Thayer's
Herring }very hard to count, gulls all 3-6m apart, flying short
distances
Glaucous-wing often to resume feeding. There could easily have been
Olympic(G-wing X Western) more Western Gulls present.
The back swamp of the East Fork of Dairy Creek is flooded and far from any road
from the RR tracks s and w to the Harrington Road Bridge 1.25 miles away. 100s
of Tundra Swan and 1000s of geese throughout .
After the gulls left, an adult Bald Eagle appeared out of the north, carry
something
large and brown. Another adult BAEA was at its side but didn't try to steal the
prey
or otherwise interact. The lucky eagle flew through a line of tall trees by the
RR, 1/2
way between the ground and their tops. It landed in the ploughed field where
the gulls
had been and began plucking a Cackling Goose, seemingly still alive. The eagle
seemed
nervous and moved short distances with it prize, taking bites in the interim.
It may have
flown 1/2 mile with the goose to where it began consuming it. This 17 miles
from
downtown Portland. Lars
