Portrait

Of a very approachable gull.

I grew up in Atlantic Highlands, NJ, four blocks from the bay. And I spent many a day on Sandy Hook in summertime. I even caught a gull once, using a box on a stick trap. My mom wouldn't let me keep it. But it wasn't until some thirty or so years after that that I discovered that there was more than one type of "sea gull"!

On the first of our MattanPallooza family vacations, we rented a house on the Jersey Shore in late September. And I noticed that there were two different sized gulls. Two different kinds, who knew? So I figured the next time I was at the library I'd get a bird book and find out what the two types of gulls were.

The birders in my reading audience are laughing now. My Sibley Guide lists twenty-six gull species in North America (not counting hybrids) each with several age related plumages. In the sidebar "Identification of Gulls" Sibley writes:

Gull identification represents one of the most

challenging and subjective puzzles in birding

and should be approached only with patient

and methodical study. A casual or impatient

approach will not be rewarded.

This, along with trying to figure out what the little yellow birds in the yard at the shore house were, (Sibley again, "Identification of of fall warblers can be daunting ..."), triggered my interest in birding.

And I'm still trying to figure gulls and warblers out. Which is a big part of the appeal.