Dungeness Spit and National Wildlife Refuge
Dungeness Spit and National Wildlife Refuge
Bird of the Day
I volunteer for the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge, and spend a fair amount of time on Dungeness Spit, mostly doing bird surveys or picking up trash. I've taken thousands of pictures on the Spit and always take my camera with me. Whenever I get an interesting picture from the Spit I send a copy to the Refuge with permission to use it however they want. This picture of the lighthouse with Mt. Baker in the background has been a big hit with them.
New Dungeness Lighthouse - 9/26/2010
On several occasions I've been very lucky to find and photograph a bird on Dungeness Spit that few others were able to. Being in the right place at the right time is the trick, but one that is hard to repeat on demand.
Franklin's Gull; L 14.5" WS 36" WT 10 oz
May 21, 2012. Denny and I accept a challenge from a fellow birder to do a Big 1/4 Day bird count. Four teams of two birded from 4 AM until 10 AM to see who could find the most birds in Clallam County in six hours. Of course, that doesn't leave much time for travel, so people mostly birded between Ediz Hook and John Wayne Marina. The most interesting bird reported was a small, black-headed gull, with a red bill and possibly red legs, spotted at a very low tide far from shore off 3 Crabs Beach. Only two gulls were possible, a Franklin's Gull or a Laughing Gull. The Franklin's Gull is a Code 4 bird and the Laughing Gull would be a Clallam County first. So we were really keen to find it and get a positive ID.
Denny found the bird late that evening and again the next day, but it was still a long way off and he couldn't verify the leg color at that distance. I did not find it.
May 25, 2012. While riding to the lighthouse with Rod and Knute, the Refuge caretaker, I was telling them about this small black-headed, red-billed, red-legged gull that we'd been looking for, and Rod interrupts to say, "Like that one over there?"
Franklin's Gull - 5/25/2012
Rod pointed out the window towards the Strait, and about 30 feet away, standing in perfect sunlight a little way off from some larger gulls, was this dainty little gull with a black head, red bill and dark red legs. "STOP!" I hollered. We stopped, and Rod and Knute kindly allowed me to spend ten minutes taking pictures.
Cute...
At 14.5" long, the Franklin's Gull is barely over half the size of the Glaucous-winged Gull, which is 26" long. And the Franklin's weighs only 10 ounces, compared to the larger gull's 2.2 pounds. So it really is a small as it looks in this next image.
Half the size of the Glaucous-winged Gull
Three hours later
I finally tore myself away and we continued on to the lighthouse, where Knute left us to hike back. Rod and I worked our way back doing bird surveys and beach clean-up, and three hours after we first saw it the Franklin's Gull was still there in the same area of the beach, waiting for me to take a few more pictures.
Dow