• he/they

Photographer, crafter, serial and parallel hobbyist, general enthusiast. The views and opinions expressed here are barely even mine, let alone anyone else's. Living on the unceded land of the Duwamish people. He/they


More birds. The gulls are Thayer's gulls, Larus thayeri, by my best attempt at cutting through the gordian knot that is the array of Larus species in the region. Identifying features for the adult include the pattern on the bill, leg color, mottled head during non-breeding season, and dark eye (the otherwise near-identical herring gull, L. argentatus, has yellow eyes); identifying features for the juvenile include it was begging the pictured adult for food the whole time I was watching, which strikes me as kin or at least conspecific behavior.

The common loon, Gavia immer, wasn't really intended to be a usable shot (a little far out for the lens and not a great lighting angle), was just using the lens as binoculars to get a look and decided to hit the shutter because why not. That said was pleasantly surprised that I was able to recover a passable (if heavily cropped) picture. Extra points to anyone who can confidently ID the prey item, every time I look my brain says something different, ranging from arthropod to gastropod to cephalopod.