Glaucous-winged Gull

Erika and I found what appears to be a Glaucous-winged Gull at the Billy Frank Jr. National Wildlife Refuge on 14 August 2020. This gull breeds along the coasts of the North Pacific from Russia to Washington and northern Oregon. The species winters south to Japan and Baja California. Elsewhere I have written about the frustration of gull identification in Puget Sound, where Glaucous-winged and Western gulls massively hybridize, resulting in young with every imaginable mixture of field marks. The hybrids even have their own name, Olympic Gulls, but you don’t get credit for either bird when you report the hybrids on eBird. This situation is further complicated by Glaucous-winged Gulls hybridizing with Herring Gulls in Alaska. These birds also migrate down the Pacific Coast, but I have yet to feel confident that I have seen either a Herring Gull or one of the Alaskan hybrids here in Olympia.