A Pacific Kittiwake Comes Inland
A Pacific Kittiwake Comes Inland
On February 16, 1939, during my absence from the city, Alva Oakes, of the Oregon Audubon Society, called at my office and left a very good written description of a gull-like bird he had found apparently sick on a sandbar on the south bank of the Columbia River in Multnomah County, Oregon. Two days later, Mr. Oakes again called and repeated his description of the bird that he had picked up and carefully examined. When I told him that I believed he had seen a Pacific Kittiwake, a species not before recorded in Oregon from any other than seashore localities, he returned to the Columbia River and found the bird dead at the exact spot where he had seen it before. The area is overrun with house cats, dogs, and small boys, but the bird had not been molested in any way; thus Rissa tridactyla pollicaris has been added to the birds of the Portland, Oregon, area. On being dissected, it was found to be an adult male in much emaciated condition.
Stanley G. Jewett
Portland, Oregon, March 22, 1939
