White-winged Gulls

Being low-energy on Sunday I confined birding to local spots, which mainly meant Falls Twp Community Park and Trenton-Hamilton Marsh. I went to the marsh looking for Rusty Blackbirds but came up with a pretty normal selection of ducks (Mallard, Am. Black Duck, N. Pintail, A. Wigeon, Gadwall, N. Shoveler, GW Teal, C. Merganser, RN Duck), a Great Blue Heron and virtually no passerines. I did pick up a tick which I found crawling on me while driving. That's one downside to a mild winter...

At Falls Twp park I saw four white-winged gulls on my first visit. I believed these to be four Iceland Gulls but since two were sleeping I wasn't absolutely certain. All appeared to be in first winter plumage. Since the lighting was bad I left for the marsh and didn't return until it started to get sunny towards sunset. It was then that I realized that there were three Icelands and one smaller Glaucous Gull, probably the same birds that I had seen two hours previously. The Glaucous was only a little larger than a Herring Gull and therefore must have been a different one than the massive individual I saw back in January (although both were first winter). Because of a dog walker flushing the flock I saw it and photographed it in flight. Of the three Icelands two were pale but one was much darker, almost close to the tone of some of the paler Herring Gulls (although obviously with pale primaries and a smaller bill). Not bad though: three Icelands and one Glaucous and a few Lesser Black-backed Gulls, and pictures of all the white-winged individuals. A bonus was a fly-over Peregrine Falcon although as usual diversity here is limited.

That actually makes three different Glaucous Gulls in one winter (two at Falls Twp, one in Edison), which is much more than usual - I'm lucky to get just one.

Gulls in PA

Falls Twp Community Park (PA) has emerged as a pretty good place to look for gulls in winter and superceded Florence (NJ) as the best place to find interesting species. They both sample the greater Tullytown landfill flock. Diversity is low: Canada Goose, Starling and a fly-over Red-tailed Hawk were the only other birds. (I saw a Cooper's Hawk over Trenton on the way back home attempting to pick Starlings out of the air with no success). The weather was appropriately cold with a north wind but the lake wasn't iced over yet.

In the smaller of the two flocks in the park I found a single immature Iceland Gull - a nice cafe-au-lait colored first winter bird with a rounded head and black bill. Eventually that flock took flight and joined the largest flock. What was surprising about this first flock was the absence of Lesser Black-backed Gulls - normally they're simple to find and the first of the rarer gulls I put my eyes on.

In the second flock I did find Lesser Black-backed Gulls (I came up with a total of 4 or 5, all adults) and then while looking for the Iceland I found a first winter Glaucous Gull sitting on the grass. It was the same color as the Iceland but was huge with a bi-colored bill. Quite an attractive gull when it got up and walked around. Finally, just before the flock was flushed by a dog walker, I found one and then a second Iceland Gull, making the proportions more typical for a PA/NJ winter gull flock (LBB: 5; Iceland: 2; Glaucous: 1).

Later in the day I went to the boat ramp in Edison and found another Glaucous Gull immature - a relatively tame one. This is probably the first time I've ever seen two Glaucous in different locations in one day, given that they are borderline rare in NJ.

Uneventful "Inshore" Pelagic 3/26

I don't normally go on Pelagics without good reason, since I'm prone to getting seasick. I had balked at a genuine winter pelagic since the high temp was in the high teens Farenheight. However I rolled the dice on this Pelagic run by See Life Paulagics and found it to be almost totally futile - nothing I saw was something I couldn't see on/from land (and for the most part already had), although some of the views were better. For the life of my I cannot understand why this outfit always runs pelagics with NJ and NY trips on the same weekend, unless they're using the Saturday trips to scout for the Sunday trips.

Highlights: Iceland, Glaucous and Lesser Black-backed Gulls spending time at the back of the boat, somewhat of a regular pelagic thing; lots of Razorbills and some of them in breeding plumage.

Lowlights: only one year bird (the Glaucous); all the Razorbills were rather distant; NO other alcids (murres, puffins, dovekies); NO Kittiwakes; NO Fulmars; and the Gannets were relatively uncommon and all adults. Nothing on the water near the boat save gulls and a few Gannets.

The trip started off well - a Peregrine on the highway bridge, and coming north out of Belmar to Sandy Hook there were large numbers of scoters (Black, Surf and a few White-winged) off Sandy Hook. Which is where we picked up the persistent first winter Glaucous Gull in rather worn plumage. That bird followed us for a while, including the point where we turned south-east toward the "mudhole". When the Glaucous left an immature Iceland Gull joined us briefly. From the turn and for the first few miles we picked up a lot of Razorbills, most distant, but absolutely all of them in flight - if they saw us within several hundred yards they left the scene. A few of the closer ones (close enough that I could pick out the white stripe on the bill) had visible breeding plumage but most appeared to be in basic plumage. As we got further offshore the activity dropped off precipitously and so there were long stretches of total boredom. At about hour 6.5 (of 8) we found a group of gulls around some trawler (scallops?) and picked up adult Iceland and shortly afterwords also second cycle Lesser Black-backed, then after that a brief visit with third cycle Lesser Black-backed. But overall it was 2 hours of good start and 6 hours of total tedium.

Migration novelties were a flock of 7 Great Blue Herons, far enough from land that they must have set off on faith or some sixth sense heading for Long Island , a single Great Egret even further out, and a Wood Duck that I missed but was the furthest out of all (but at least it can set down on the water).

Note to self: no more late March pelagics, at least not with this lot, barring a lot of evidence to the contrary. Subsequent Atlantic pelagics should probably be off MA or NC, or perhaps a real deep winter pelagic again.

(I haven't seen the results of the subsequent day's pelagic, but given the lack of noise about it on the lists I think it had much the same results).