Larus heermanni

Woke up in Astoria this morning and made my way first to the most northwesterly tip of Oregon, at the mouth of the Columbia, and then down the coast, hitting beaches at Seaside, Cannon Beach, and Lincoln City. Also made the obligatory stop at the Tillamook Cheese Factory. The assembly line workers wore shirts that read "I Loaf You" and "All You Need is Loaf." Some of them seemed more content than others to gawked at like zoo animals from elevated viewing platforms behind thick glass.

I decided Lincoln City would be a good place to stop for the night. Turns out this place has its own Lincoln Memorial: a mighty bronze statue of a young Abraham perched gayly atop a grazing horse. Definitely a more humanizing portrayal of our president than that one on the penny.

These are Heermann's Gulls in their finest adult non-breeding plumage. They live along the coast and at some distance out to sea. Their range extends from as far south as Nayarit, Mexico to extreme south British Columbia, though the most northerly breeding colonies are in northern California. I have previously seen them in Monterey, Point Reyes Peninsula, and Humboldt County, and not quite so far north. They are one of my favorite gulls, admittedly because of their distinctiveness: their dark plumage (their heads become snowy white in the breeding season) and their outstanding red bills. These particular birds were on the run from a wave that threatened to wet their dainty black gull feet.