Day 111: In the Pacific Northwest, only out-of-staters take pictures of seagulls. Only out-of-staters carry umbrellas, for that matter. Both behaviours mark a person as a little peculiar, an outsider who wouldn't understand the gaffe even if it was explained to them. Consequently, photos of seagulls doing nothing out of the ordinary are few and far between, pigeonholed (forgive me) with pictures of robins and starlings, English sparrows and yes, pigeons. A photo of a seagull gulping down herring may draw something marginally longer than a cursory glance, but even that is quickly passed over by most Pacific Northwesterners as commonplace.
What drew my attention to this bird in the Puyallup River was its abrupt plunge into a pool at the base of a log and the flurry of activity which followed. I presumed it had found a salmon carcass because it was clearly feeding. Once it had satisfied itself, it lifted off only to settle again on a gravel bar in the middle of the river. It seemed to know I was watching it despite the distance between us, so for just a moment, I became a tourist. Well, I suppose my compendium of PNW birds wouldn't be complete without a silly seagull in it!
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