Glaucous-winged Gull

Recently I blogged about “Olympic” Gulls, the hybrid swarm between Western and Glaucous-winged Gulls breeding around Puget Sound, Washington. Previously I posted notes about Western and Glaucous-winged species, but I have only a few photographs of the later. These gulls breed along the Pacific Coast from Alaska to the Olympic Peninsula. They winter from there to Baja California and the Gulf of California.

In recent years, populations of Glaucous-winged Gulls have greatly increased. Apparently this trend is in response to increasing supplies of human garbage and fish offal.  Declines in Bald Eagle numbers may have contributed gull increases—with fewer eagles, more dead fish are available to the gulls. With Bald Eagle numbers recovering, some populations of Glaucous-winged Gulls are declining (Hayward and Verbeek 2008).