Two Gull Records for California
Two Gull Records for California
On March 4, 1936, when in the company of James Moffitt, I shot an adult Glaucous Gull (Larus hyperboreus) at Suisun, California, some five miles west of Grimly Island. The capture was notable in the fact that the bird was an adult; a small female. The plumage was fully adult with no trace of immature markings but, as is often the case, the bill showed a smudge of dusky toward the tip and the orange marking at the angle of the lower mandible was very dull in color. The iris was the normal pale straw color of the adult. A notable feature was the presence of faint gray cross bars near the tips of the two longest primaries that suggesthe supposed hybrid Lurus nelsoni The bird was picked out from a company of Herring and California gulls which rose from the bank and circled overhead as we passed down stream in a boat.
On February 29, 1936, T. T. McCabe and the writer hired a launch to take us out to sea from Santa Cruz, California, in search of pelagic birds. On the return to port, when some seven miles out, I shot a Yellow-footed Gull (Larus occidentalis livens), an adult female, from the “tail” of gulls that McCabe had attracted by throwing out cut-up bait. The bird had light saffronlyellow feet, and the color of mantle and the measurements agreed with specimens in the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology and in my own collection from Baja California. The ovary was slightly enlarged. This establishes a record considerably to the north of any previous one. A few minutes later a specimen (nearly adult) of the northern race, Larus occidentalis occidentalis, was collected.
Allan Brooks
Comox, B. C, December 25, 1937
