Shoot 2024-12-31-211946 — philthompson.me

Birds
Mandel

Shoot 2024-12-31-211946

In this year-end gallery I have shots from a recent trip to the coast to look for gulls, and an unexpected Snowy Owl!

After quite a few tries, I was able to photograph some lifer Iceland (Thayer's) Gulls and a new county bird, Short-billed Gull. The Short-billed was a 1st-year bird that was easy to identify in the field because of how small it was! I have a couple comparison shots that show a much larger Olympic gull standing just behind it. The Thayer's Gulls I was able to identify from photos. It was quite the challenge to sort through all my gull photos and try to ID them.

While visiting family back on the east coast for Christmas, we stopped by a local nature preserve. I asked a photographer there (carrying a large lens!) whether she'd seen anything good and she told us where she'd seen a Snowy Owl! She said it had been there for a few days, and we were able to find it and get some binocular views. What a great bird to stumble across to end the year!

My "birds in review" collages can be found here.

Signature

📄 hashes-2024-12-31-211946.txt

📄 hashes-2024-12-31-211946.txt.sig

The above hashes-<date>.txt file contains SHA-256 hashes of all the photos from this shoot. The hashes-<date>.txt.sig is a signature of that hashes file, created with my PGP key. The signature file itself was written to both the Bitcoin Cash and Algorand blockchains, in the OP RETURN and Note fields respectively, using the transactions below. In short, this proves that these photos and the signature both existed at the time the transactions were written to the Bitcoin Cash and Algorand blockchains. This blog post has more details.

view the BCH tx on blockchair.com: 047816079456a2e7ad01d433a6fe807776a2820332386c4f4b042d93b6536294

view the ALGO tx on explorer.perawallet.app: 4U6O2XROT7YHACLLNY64UKDCGF7JZ4VHTTPUUFY2Z6ELIJNUWBIA

9:56AM Monday December 16, 2024

Lincoln's Sparrow

9:56AM Monday December 16, 2024

Lincoln's Sparrow

9:56AM Monday December 16, 2024

Lincoln's Sparrow

9:56AM Monday December 16, 2024

Lincoln's Sparrow

9:56AM Monday December 16, 2024

Lincoln's Sparrow

10:11AM Monday December 16, 2024

American Kestrel

3:31PM Wednesday December 18, 2024

Dark-eyed Junco (Oregon)

3:35PM Wednesday December 18, 2024

Anna's Hummingbird

3:35PM Wednesday December 18, 2024

Anna's Hummingbird

10:22AM Thursday December 19, 2024

American Herring Gull

10:22AM Thursday December 19, 2024

American Herring Gull

10:22AM Thursday December 19, 2024

American Herring Gull

The black wingtip with only single mirror on p10 and light eye means this is likely a Herring or Cook Inlet. I want to say this is a Cook Inlet, because the eye and back seem slightly too dark for Herring, and because there's no black on the bill, but the wingtips (both upper and undersides) are so dark I have to go with American Herring Gull for this one. It could be a Cook Inlet that shows a lot of Herring features.

10:28AM Thursday December 19, 2024

Western x Glaucous-winged Gull (hybrid)

10:28AM Thursday December 19, 2024

Western x Glaucous-winged Gull (hybrid)

10:29AM Thursday December 19, 2024

Western x Glaucous-winged Gull (hybrid)

10:32AM Thursday December 19, 2024

Pelagic Cormorant

10:35AM Thursday December 19, 2024

Black Turnstone

10:35AM Thursday December 19, 2024

Black Turnstone

10:35AM Thursday December 19, 2024

Black Turnstone

10:37AM Thursday December 19, 2024

Western Gull

10:37AM Thursday December 19, 2024

Western Gull

10:37AM Thursday December 19, 2024

Western Gull

10:37AM Thursday December 19, 2024

Western Gull

10:40AM Thursday December 19, 2024

California Gull

10:40AM Thursday December 19, 2024

Western Gull, Red-necked Grebe

10:40AM Thursday December 19, 2024

Western Gull

10:44AM Thursday December 19, 2024

Western Gull

10:44AM Thursday December 19, 2024

Western Gull

10:44AM Thursday December 19, 2024

Western Gull

10:45AM Thursday December 19, 2024

California Gull

10:45AM Thursday December 19, 2024

California Gull

10:45AM Thursday December 19, 2024

California Gull

10:45AM Thursday December 19, 2024

California Gull

10:48AM Thursday December 19, 2024

Western Gull

10:48AM Thursday December 19, 2024

Western x Glaucous-winged Gull (hybrid)

10:48AM Thursday December 19, 2024

Western x Glaucous-winged Gull (hybrid)

I'm going with Olympic over Cook Inlet and Herring because the wingtip is quite plain black (lacking long gray tongues on the outer p8-p6 primaries) and because the eye and back are quite dark.

10:48AM Thursday December 19, 2024

Western x Glaucous-winged Gull (hybrid)

10:50AM Thursday December 19, 2024

Red-throated Loon (Juvenile)

10:50AM Thursday December 19, 2024

Red-throated Loon (Juvenile)

10:52AM Thursday December 19, 2024

Glaucous-winged Gull

10:52AM Thursday December 19, 2024

Glaucous-winged Gull

10:52AM Thursday December 19, 2024

Glaucous-winged Gull

Many of the Glaucous-winged Gulls in the recent Gull Guide book by Ayyash feature slightly darker wingtips like this one does.

10:52AM Thursday December 19, 2024

Glaucous-winged Gull

11:01AM Thursday December 19, 2024

Red-throated Loon

11:01AM Thursday December 19, 2024

Red-throated Loon

11:02AM Thursday December 19, 2024

Red-throated Loon

11:03AM Thursday December 19, 2024

Western Gull

11:27AM Thursday December 19, 2024

Iceland Gull (Thayer's)

11:27AM Thursday December 19, 2024

Iceland Gull (Thayer's)

I am going with Thayer's for these gulls because of the light eyes, straight/thin bills, long gray tongues on outer primaries, light gray underside to wingtip, fairly light gray back, and their squat/short-legged appearance.

11:27AM Thursday December 19, 2024

Iceland Gull (Thayer's)

11:27AM Thursday December 19, 2024

Iceland Gull (Thayer's)

11:28AM Thursday December 19, 2024

unknown

11:28AM Thursday December 19, 2024

unknown

11:28AM Thursday December 19, 2024

Iceland Gull (Thayer's), California Gull, unknown

11:28AM Thursday December 19, 2024

Iceland Gull (Thayer's), California Gull, unknown

11:28AM Thursday December 19, 2024

Iceland Gull (Thayer's)

I believe this is a 1st-year Thayer's because of its uniform light/medium brown color, small dark bill, and relatively large eye on small face.

11:28AM Thursday December 19, 2024

Iceland Gull (Thayer's), California Gull, unknown

The gull by itself up on the point of the rock looks to be another Thayer's, but I'm less sure of this one.

11:31AM Thursday December 19, 2024

Iceland Gull (Thayer's), California Gull

11:32AM Thursday December 19, 2024

Iceland Gull (Thayer's), California Gull

11:32AM Thursday December 19, 2024

Iceland Gull (Thayer's), California Gull

11:37AM Thursday December 19, 2024

Short-billed Gull

11:38AM Thursday December 19, 2024

Western x Glaucous-winged Gull (hybrid), Short-billed Gull

The large 1st-year gull standing just behind the foreground Short-billed is probably an Olympic Gull. The primaries don't look dark enough for Western or Herring, and it's too light overall for Glaucous-winged.