I had really hoped for a lifer today. A Black-headed gull has been seen in Snohomish County on most visits for the last couple of weeks, but the last report was 2-16-16 (3 days ago). Still, I saw no negative reports either so decided to go hoping everyone interested already had the bird and no one tried since last weekend. ABC birders responded to a invite to join me, and I met Faye, Laurel and Carol Smith in Bonney Lake at 7:15 at the Sky Island park-and-ride and we first headed for the Enumclaw Gyrfalcon spot. No luck at all there, maybe too early, but after a reasonably thorough look at the possible roosts we headed for the BHGU spot. We got there at about 9:40 AM and cruised all the likely areas, finding only about 110 Mew gulls, a flock of GW and Olympic gulls, lots of swans including at least 4 Tundra swans among the many TRSW, but no sign of the BHGU. We made several rounds of the prior spots, expanded to any roads within a couple of miles looking for possible other areas of habitat, but no luck. Gave up hoping to beat traffic home leaving about 1:45 but it was pretty much of a crawl much of the way home anyway.
Moderate rain at times, but still good light and easy birding.
Maybe another try Monday if the gull is relocated.