We saw dozens of  small shorebirds bathing in Asbury Creek this morning. They looked like smallish (largish robin-sized) but very fat pigeons. I stood and watched them while Gary moved quietly up to my side and gestured to his pocket where he carried the camera. A neighbor joined us. None of us knew what they were, and I took photos to be sure I could accurately recall what they looked like. 

Black Turnstones (Arenaria melanocephala) are on the watch list, eat limpets and barnacles, and nest on the ground. Their size and overall coloring, the black band on the end of their whitish tails, what we could catch of their distinctive wing pattern, and their continuous chattering calls (we checked at Cornell) cinched identification. One of the birds in the photo is bent over so you can see the white and black tail. “The oldest recorded Black Turnstone was a female and was at least 8 years old when she was recaptured and rereleased during banding operations in Alaska.”

The larger birds are most likely Western Gulls (Larus occidentalis) or possibly hybrids of the species with Glaucous-winged Gulls (Larus glaucescens) that may also have the black wingtips seen above. The hybrids are the most common species in Washington.

“The oldest recorded Western Gull was at least 33 years, 11 months old. It was banded in 1973 in California, and sighted in the same state in 2007 and identified by its band.”

The Glaucous-winged has not done so well: “The oldest recorded Glaucous-winged Gull was at least 23 years, 10 months old when it was killed. It was banded in British Columbia in 1977, and found in Washington in 2001.”

[We found four banded seabirds dead on the shore in recent months. The bodies of three grebes were within a meter of one another. Gary speculated that they may have been overstressed during the banding process. The fourth was not identifiable and had been banded around the neck. No, we did not tear the bodies apart to retrieve the bands. Not even in the name of science.]