FreeLists / birdky / [birdky] RPT: Sabine's Gull not see Thursday, but ...

["Palmer-Ball, Brainard \(EPPC OOS KNPC\)" <Brainard.Palmer-Ball@xxxxxx>]

Robert Dever and I were not able to locate the Sabine's Gull at Honker
Bay, LBL, on Thursday afternoon, but our effort should in no way suggest
that the bird is gone. I mess up a lot, but seldom is the occasion when
I so thoroughly misinterpret a situation as I did with the gull
yesterday. First of all, my complete and thoughtful analysis of the
weather situation Wed PM and early Thurs AM was that the rain would
likely have cleared LBL by the time we arrived a little after 12:30 CST
... well, we did have about five minutes in the next four hours that it
didn't rain, but our arrival was timed with the beginning of a 3 hour
stretch of the heaviest rain of the day! On top of that, having heard of
Steve White's initial observations on Sat, his apparently well-timed
return to easily find and videotape the bird on Tuesday, and Hap and
Melissa's success on Wednesday, I figured we would arrive to find lots
of Bonaparte's Gulls and waterfowl milling about on the bay with only
some sort of relatively short wait before we might spy the prize. Again
I was quite wrong ... when we arrived to find ONE Ring-billed Gull and a
handful of Pied-billed Grebes and Bufflehead on the bay I thought, oh no
... something must have changed. However, Hap later confirmed by phone
that she and Melissa actually saw the bird feeding mostly by itself and
that on Wednesday there was also very little else in the bay (although
apparently some greater level of activity than we saw yesterday). Anyway
... bottom line is that while we missed the bird, those returning to
look for it should not necessarily be discouraged by our failure nor a
general lack of activity in Honker Bay. Hopefully you will see more than
the 6-8 Bonies and 4 Ring-billed Gulls that we saw COMBINED in three
bays (Honker, Energy, and Taylor).
 
I wish we had other highlights to report to have made the 7 hour round
trip worthwhile, but I would have to stretch it to be distant views of
some Greater Scaup and a Horned Grebe!
 
bpb, Frankfort