Subject: [Tweeters] Re: terns and gulls
Date: Feb 23 14:39:57 2011
From: Darlene Sybert - drsybert at northtown.org


Ken Purcell wrote:
>Those "terns", I'm sure, were Ring-billed Gulls (adult and subadult) and a >few Mew Gulls with the odd big Glaucous-winged Gull (I didn't see any >hybrids) mixed in. At least all the ones I looked at were.

The desciption that you provided does not fit the birds that we saw.
It's interesting to me that even though I did not DESCRIBE these birds,
you are "sure" you know what species they were. If you had been
there beside me so we could be certain we were discussing the same
birds, I would not presume to argue with you. But, the fact that you
needed a scope to make your determinations is another indicator to me
that you were looking at different birds because those we saw were
flying so close to the boardwalk that the wing-feather details etc were
visible to the naked eye. That's why I am so reluctant to believe the
Refuge Vounteer could have made a mistake--or now that he pointed out
the differences in gulls and terns--that I am. Maybe they were just
passing through...

But, I did enjoy your descriptions of the various gulls. Most of them
were too distant for us to identify without a scope, so we simply wrote
"gulls" in our notes and reported them that way to the GBBC. We were
surprised also by the large number of Northern Shovelers and American
Wigeons and by the presence of the Eurasian Wigeon, too, but nothing
could top that Hooded Merganser couple gliding down the current along
the old boardwalk and looking so beautiful.

Darlene
Cinebar