A Flock of Seagulls

The first half of Wednesday’s trip to Dungeness Spit was limited to observing various kinds of gulls, which, fortunately, turned out to be more interesting than I would have thought. I’ve never seen gulls like these striking Heerman’s Gulls with bright red beaks and white heads, though they were starting to lose their breeding colors,

Heerman's Gull

mixed in with gulls like this,

Immature Heerman's Gull

which turned out to be an immature Heerman’s Gull. I still find it difficult to get my head around the idea that totally different colored birds can be the same species.

Heerman’s Gulls, though, are not to be confused with this more common, at least more common here, Glaucous-Winged Gull flying by

Glaucous-Winged Gull

nor with this Glaucous-Winged Gull with tan and black chicks.

Gull Chicks

which had nested on the lighthouse roof, our destination for the day, 5 miles from the start of the trail, and at least 9 miles back to the start of the trail, or so it seemed on a day of record high tides. It’s taken me two day to get enough energy back to actually sit down and start editing the pictures I took, though I’m sure the fact that I saw more birds on the way back added to the time it took to return, but that’s a story for another day.