Gulls are jerks and Life bird 431!

 It was a beautiful sunny day here on the coast so I headed down to Winchester Bay this morning as I knew the light would be optimal for photography. I also hoped that on the outside chance the Yellow-billed Loon, reported on eBird, would still  be around although the last report of it was February 6. As I hoped the light was great and lots of birds were present. At one point in my walk, I noticed a gull circling and diving near a rocky bank. Often I will see this behavior when a predator is present and the bird is trying to drive it off. As I scanned the area looking for a predator, a loon surfaced with a fish in its bill. With the loons head barely clearing the surface, the gull swooped down and stole the fish out of its bill! What a jerk! The loon was a Common Loon and not the one I had hoped for. Below is a photo of the loon.

I continued on taking pics of other birds like gulls, cormorants and grebes. If you are interested in seeing those other pics, click here. Eventually I ended across from where the common loon was and looking back I noticed another loon. I looked at it thru my binoculars and to my surprised, it was the yellow-billed. I quickly starting snapping pics as proof of my sighting. As you can see by comparing the two loons pictured and difference is pretty subtle.

I completed my loop of the area and headed home. I submitted my list with pics on eBird and to my delight the submission was accepted adding Life Bird 431! For those of you following my blog, you may ask, "Didn't you post in July of 2021 that the Great Gray Owl was your 431 Life Bird?" That is correct but this year, eBird changed how it categorized how they count life birds and I lost 3 species. Non-native birds that are escaped and live in the wild are no longer counted unless they established a breeding colony. At least that is how I understand the change. Either way, it is all good and does not dampen my enthusiasm for bird watching.