Pull up a comfy chair and join us for brunch, now that there's a diary.
So I had a little Flickr trouble to start the day and had a delay in posting this. Because it's so late, I'll share one little story from my Bolinas day for now, and do the full diary next Sunday.
I took a one-day workshop from Peter Pyle on molt and ID last Sunday. Rather than try to see as many species as possible, we focussed on just a few and really got to know them better. In addition to plumage, we also watched behavior. One little scene played out in front of us and provided a few learning opportunities.
A Western Gull found a morsel... a big one. A dungeness crab.
The gull banged it around pretty well and was enjoying its meal while fending off all the challengers who wanted to pirate it - other gulls (adult and juvenile) and crows. They made some pretty close passes but it held on to its prize.
But then another gull landed right beside the first one. After a quick glance around, it started eating. The first gull didn't mind and kept noshing away. Peter said that they were mates, and you could tell that by the fact that they were sharing the meal. One of those things that are blindingly obvious, if you stop to think about it for an instant.
When the second gull landed, it looked like any other adult Western Gull - probably why it didn't occur to me that it was a mate. But seeing them side by side, you could see some size difference between the larger male and the smaller female. And it's subtle, but you could see the difference in bill size between them - the male is on the left below, and the female is on the right. He has a heftier bill and a slightly different head shape.
We saw another pair later who lined up nicely for photos and allowed this great comparison shot. Much easier to see the difference in bills here.
The quest for gull ID skills continues.