FreeLists / birdky / [birdky] RPT: Sabine's Gull update for Christmas Eve

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

Matt Stickel, Eddie & Jennifer Huber, and myself were able to get very nice 
views of the Sabine's Gull at Honker Bay this afternoon. We all arrived about 
9:00 a.m. CST to a completely fogged in area with very little visibility. We 
killed an hour or so observing landbirds in the surrounding forest edges; about 
10:30 the fog cleared and we had the bird within about 15 minutes.  It worked 
out towards the mouth of the bay at first, but soon was working back and forth 
in front of our vantage point at the gravel turnaround a few hundred yards 
northeast of Honker Lake Dam.  The bird was exclusively gleaning midges from 
the air and water surface the entire time. It appears to me to be in worn 
juvenile plumage rather than first-winter plumage, but I assume that some 
photos may yield a definitive answer.
 
Elsewhere in the bay we had all three species of mergansers with 7 Commons and 
8 Red-breasteds. An adult Herring Gull was present, along with 5-10 
Ring-billeds and 30-35 Bonaparte's. Also present were 10+ Horned Grebes and 
scattered Buffleheads among commoner waterbirds.
 
On the way back, Matt and stopped at Paradise to see if we could find the 
previously reported Eared Grebe, but despite the presence of 50+ Pied-billeds, 
we came up empty. The juv. Black-crowned Night-Heron was still present, 
although there was a dead one laying in the edge of the water nearby. On our 
way out, we had 5 Short-eared Owls, 2 perched in small trees along the S2 road 
in the Sinclair Unit of Peabody WMA.
 
bpb, Frankfort