Hi Tweeters,

I arrived at the John Day dam before noon.? I looked for the LESSER BLACK-BACKED GULL below the dam for quite a while without success.? I next went above the dam and immediately saw a large raft of gulls in the water several hundred yards upstream from the dam.? I spotted?the Lesser Black-backed Gull in?the middle of the group.? It slept most of the time that I watched it, but it would occasionally poke its head up.? The Oregon birding list?site has good descriptions and directions.? To reach the area above the dam, coming from Portland, take I-84 to exit 114 and make a u-turn at the park entrance.? Go under the highway and return to I-84 East.? Take exit 112, which is mostly a parking area with impressively foul port-a-potties.? You can park on the side of the road just before the main parking lot if the spaces are open, or just park in the lot and walk east for a few hundred feet to be able to scope the area where it was located.? Besides the gull, there are a lot of other species of waterfowl on the river.

Good birding,

Lonnie Somer
Olympia
wheelermombi at comcast.net