By Terry Korolyk

It was April 4, 2006. A woman had phoned in to the Bird Alert a report that she and her husband may have seen a pair of King Eiders on the Bow River in northwest Calgary. This was quite the report considering that in December of last year, 2005, the Province had had only its 2nd, ever occurrence of this species with a juvenile male appearing at Lake Minnewanka in Banff NP. A constant stream of observers, many of them from Calgary (myself amongst them), had made the trip out to the lake to get the bird on their respective lists; life, provincial, or otherwise. The lake was completely frozen except for a long, lonely finger of water stretching out from the north shoreline, and, this was where the bird was along with other laggard waterfowl. Many got to see it, but, eventually, perhaps inevitably, the bird’s remains were found, so, visitors ceased to make the trip to the lake, and, Alberta’s 2nd. ever King Eider had fallen, ignominiously,  to a predator unaware of the bird’s stature and place in history.

Was there something going on with this species now that was causing individuals to end up inexplicably in our province? I headed out. When I got to the location given in the directions, it was clear something was  amiss. There was a mixup, and, the directions on the river location did not jive with the location in the city. There were no King Eiders here, but, I thought I was supposed to be along the river in the northwest part of Calgary. Actually, I was on the south shore of the Bow River by the 10th. Street Bridge. Anyway, I spotted a dark-appearing Gull resting with other Gulls and birds, mostly waterfowl, on the other side of the river somewhat upstream. That placed it in Centenary Park directly adjacent to the Calgary Zoo parking lot. I couldn’t see it well enough from where I was, so, I decided to take a chance that it wouldn’t leave when I went across the bridge to the other side of the river. A rare Gull would be consolation for not seeing a pair of King Eiders.

A long shot of the Western Gull amidst other Gulls when I first saw it. April 4, 2006.

I was in luck. I had crossed the bridge, parked, and made my way past other people, and, through the open woodland to the shoreline where the birds were resting in the rocks just yards below. It was in this same area where just a few years ago, I had come to get my provincial Northern Cardinal, a female that had taken up a territory in a dense thicket during a cold winter. I remember this winter primarily because it was cold and because of 3 birds; the Cardinal, a Pine Warbler, and, an alternate-plumaged Pacific Loon that was actually at a location that was only slightly downriver. I saw all three.
As I stood on the shoreline, I could feel the grass beneath my feet. I could see the dark-backed Gull amongst all the other birds, but, it was asleep with its head in its back as birds do when they sleep. I waited and walked about trying to make some noise as I moved hoping the bird would move. Was it a Lesser Black-backed; a Slaty-back…………? My thoughts were that it was the former as it was the more common of the two as a rarity. After a short while, the bird moved around, and, the first thing that struck me about it was the size of the bill………………..it was ridiculously long for one thing, looking very bizarre and somewhat comic, but, it was also somewhat bulky. What kind of Gull was this here with such a ridiculous bill. The head was an odd shape from what we’d seen around here looking somewhat like a dome. The bird had a very dumpy build almost like a pot belly. From what I’d seen of the bird so far trying to see as much of it as I could, I was starting to think Western Gull. This would have been a first here in the province I thought. Would I be able to get a look at the legs and feet; they were just about the only things I hadn’t seen yet. I had seen many of these birds on the west coast.

A closeup of the Western Gull.