Among the Guests Registered 159 



two reasons: one was that the other gulls, which it passed by, 

 or which approached it, resented its presence and invariably 

 made one or more vicious jabs at it, as barnyard chickens 

 might peck at a strange hen. The other reason was that, 

 when it faced me, it showed a black area on either side of the 

 head which vaguely resembled the sideburns of a duck hawk 

 —markings which I had never seen before and which I first 

 concluded must be a transition stage in the plumage of a 

 local gull. But on the second day, when the noise of a speed- 

 boat sent every bird on the island into noisy flight, the dark 

 wing tips and white along the wings satisfied me that I was 

 looking at a bird which to me was entirely new. 



I did not rush my search. I did not find it easy to observe 

 the bird even though I had plenty of time. The small triangu- 

 lar-shaped island had a tiny low spot in its center which the 

 stranger insisted on occupying and which it left only when 

 other gulls crowded it out. I was on vacation. The marsh lay 

 under a warm September sun; the air was comfortable so 

 that a shirt was unnecessary except as a protection against 

 sunburn. I could hear yellow-legs and Wilson snipes calling, 

 and frequently they passed so close that I caught the sound 

 of the wind in their wings. Often the least sandpipers and 

 other small peeps landed near and fed in rather close forma- 

 tion. There was much to see and little reason to leave. My 

 notes on the bird were fragmentary and read something like 

 this: "acts like a large tern, floats high with tail held more 

 erect than other gulls present, pearl-gray mantle, white mark- 

 ing around all but front of eye, white edging on rear of wing, 

 legs dark. . . ." With the aid of these and many other notes 

 I learned that the bird was a Franklin gull, once called 

 Franklin's Rosy Gull, and popularly known as the prairie 

 pigeon or prairie dove, a bird which had been recorded as 

 a Pacific Northwest visitor not more than two or three times, 

 and had never been reported in King County or in our city 

 marsh. The colored movies proved sufficiently detailed to 



