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I visited
Bountiful Landfill yesterday (Saturday) and there were lots of Herring
Gulls, probably more the 150 individuals. I only saw one adult Thayer's which I thought was odd. There was one second winter and several first winter Thayer's, one adult and one first or second winter (probably 2nd) Glaucous, two probable Glaucous-winged x Herring (one first and one third winter), one possible Glaucous-winged x Western, and one pale bird that looked like a Glaucous x Herring with darkish primaries. Maybe the most intriguing bird of the afternoon was an adult Herring Gull with dark eyes. It had a Herring sized bill with black visible on the underside of the primaries. It also had white spots between the gray tongues on the primaries (approximately P6-8?) and the black sub-terminal markings on those feathers. I wasn't able to compare the mantle shade directly to any other Herring Gulls but it didn't strike me as being a lot darker. All in all a nice afternoon of gulling. I didn't see either Glaucous Gull for the first hour and a half so it's worth sticking around for a while if you go. There are birds coming and going all day. Cliff
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