Ruff or not

This is I believe an adult Ruff possibly a female?  It was at Santa Maria Sewage on September 10, 2013.  Wes Fritz showed me a juvenile Ruff at this same sewage plant Friday September 6, 2013.  A very good birder says this may be a Least Sandpiper.  I did see a real Ruff on October 1, 2013 at the Santa Maria River Estuary.  The morning light meant I got a lousy picture so you are going to have to trust me on this. It is the middle bird of the three birds in the foreground.

Thayer's Gulls, or Thayer's Gull Like birds

I just want to dump a bunch of photos of birds I think are Thayer's Gulls or could be confused with Thayer's Gulls. This gull. I got no idea!
When I took this photo I thought it was a Thayer's Gull but now I think it is a hybrid of some kind.
Some small percent of Thayer's Gulls have light eyes.
This is a third cycle Thayer's Gull from this winter at Laguna Lake SLO.
Either a Ring-billed or second cycle Thayer's
This is the gull with the P10 mirror below, I thought was some east asian Caspian Gull, but is a Thayer's.
At the time I thought this adult bird was a Thayer's Gull because the bird overall and the bill were very much smaller than the American Herring Gull behind it. Now I think it is a small female American Herring Gull.
At the time I took this picture I thought this was a Thayer's Gull, but now I do not know??
This is a very worn and bleached Thayer's Gull , some summer Glaucous-winged Gull can look like this but this bird's bill was slim and short. And it was very small.
This is a third cycle Ring-billed Gull. Sometimes I try to make them a Thayer's but they are not.
I thought at the time and I think still that this is an Iceland Gull, or Kumlien's Gull. It is not a Glaucous or Glaucous-winged Gull. It is really small.
I used to think this was a Thayer's Gull but the head is squarish and the bill is weird.
I think this bird is a third cycle or fourth cycle Thayer's Gull at Oceano.

This gull I thought was some kind of east asian Caspian Gull, but I now think it is a third cycle Thayer's Gull. Some of them have this mirror on P10.

spring

March 29, 2011 I saw a Lesser Nighthawk at the pond near my home. On March 30 I took a few bad photos. The early date from Birds of Santa Barbara County Lehman 1994, is April 10. I also saw an adult Swainson's Hawk and a male Yellow-headed Blackbird. Things are picking up!

October 2010

I was a busy person October and I did not get to bird at Guadalupe and Oceano like I usually do every October. I had a Western Kingbird/Tropical Kingbird at the ranch. Not sure which is more likely in October?

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/E5Bq4usBCphsk5BLBtGlDQ .

I think I saw a juvenile Moorhen at River Oak Park in October??

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/z2bx5fWlmHx92mlRlK06Ng  .

October 27 I saw a Red-naped Sapsucker at Mission Santa Ines in Solvang.

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/WywtzlyoGSeG0s1ddpQEZQ  .

And a White-throated Sparrow at Han Christian Anderson! Park in Solvang .

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/URCFqXj8zFTgZ2JOHeHd9A  .

On October 28, 2010 I went to the Santa Maria Sewage Plant and saw a late Pectoral Sandpiper and a late Solitary Sandpiper as well as an Eurasian Wigeon.

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/LbH04VnmSNUsHCnt5VcabQ  .

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/AaYtSJXzKYB6CMs2xQ3Ifg  .

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/aimDPExFJkmMqQJVUuC5VQ .

Ivory Gull at Pismo Beach

Like many California birders I went to Pismo Beach not for the clams, man, but to see an Ivory Gull who knew he should have made a left turn at Albuquerque. The bird first showed itself to a non birder who took a photo Thursday November 4, 2010. I went Saturday afternoon hoping to miss the twitcher mob. It was a very beautiful bird and like everyone who went I got some photos. The bird was tame! I am pretty sure an adult Ivory Gull at Pismo means were all screwed. Global warming bla bla bla.

Odd Shrike at the ranch

Saturday, September 25, 2010 I took some pictures of a weird Shrike at the ranch. I think it is an eastern subspecies of Loggerhead Shrike??? The gray on the back was blue-grayish. Much lighter than the local breeding loggerheads. The bill base on the bottom was horn colored. The gray on the head was violet-gray and the tail was long and ended with a notch. It did not appear to have any white along its side??? There was some subtle pink-orangish on the sides of the breast. The only Northern Shrikes I have ever seen were juveniles and quite brown. The head shape looks odd for a loggerhead also? A very odd bird.

9/25/2010 Little Blue Heron at ranch!

Today we had offshore winds, (96 F.) Santanas? Then this evening, walking around perimeter of the ranch near the vineyard, I saw a blue heron flying around and figured it was a great blue. But then the bird flew right over me and it was a Little Blue Heron! I followed it to an ag pond and got a few good pictures.

There are 20+ records for Santa Barbara County, but the ranch is very close to the San Luis Obispo County line and Marantz's Birds of SLO only has two records. This maybe the first Santa Maria Valley record?