[TN-Bird] FIVE ICELAND GULLS! Plus in Lake Co. TN

Feb. 20, 2005
Lake Co. TN
 
I thought the weather was bad on Saturday but on Sunday the cold wind blew  
hard all day with some driving rain early on. But as I always say, Bad Weather 
=  Good Birds, well today it was great.
 
The gulls traded in and out all day and before noon I had 3 Iceland Gulls  on 
the ground at one time, where had the others been, as Mike and I had  only 
one late in the day on Saturday. The California made 3 short  appearances in 
the 
morning but none in the afternoon. Three Thayer's (2 -1st yr  and a 2nd yr) 
were also frequent visitors but only one immature Lesser  Black-backed showed 
and that was late afternoon.
 
Nancy Moore joined me and we had the three Iceland Gulls, all light birds,  
in view and watched them lift off over a 5 minute period and head toward the  
prison. A guy stopped by and told us we ought to try the other side of the  
tree line as there were more gulls there and closer to the road. We were a  
little skeptical as there had not been any gulls there on Saturday and I had  
checked it again that morning. We went over and found that indeed the birds  
were 
stacked in there like cord wood. This is the area where the Iceland Gulls  were 
first found last week.
 
I found a gull that I first called a Thayer's because it was much darker  
than any of the Iceland Gulls that we had in the other field. The bird  walked 
out from behind a Ring-billed (this was a very small bird, only slightly  
larger 
than the Ring-billed), and its primaries were white? I called Nancy's  
attention to the bird and she agreed it was gray and not white like the ones we 
 had 
had 5 minutes before in the other field. Not 10 feet away we found a larger  
Iceland with the same darker coloration and darker markings on the back but  
it also had white primaries. When these birds preened their wings were all  the 
same pale coloration. We now had seen 5 Iceland Gulls in a matter of minutes  
in TN!
 
I have photos of all these birds which I'll try to post soon to the Iceland  
web page. I'll send a post to let everyone know when they are posted. The 
river  is on a 10 foot  rise after falling 20 feet, so this might hold these 
birds 
 in these flooded fields and off the river.
 
Two very special raptors also gave me a thrill, I had gone to Gray's Camp  
for a coke and saw 3 immature eagles feeding on a Mallard on a gravel road just 
 
west of Nancy's place. The smaller bird was feeding and would not let the 
other  two larger birds get near his feast. The smaller bird held my attention 
as 
 it was showing a black boarder to a white based tail and the legs looked as 
if  it was wearing chaps. It was an immature Golden Eagle. The birds were too 
busy  watching each other than to bother with me and I took a great set of  
photos.
 
The biggest excitement of the day came at the very end while Nancy and I  
were comparing notes on the two darker Iceland Gulls, all H--- broke loose. 
I've  
never seen so much panic and all the gulls in every field around were in the  
air. We had had Bald Eagles, Harriers and Red-tailed Hawks fly over these 
fields  and the gulls would just fly up and then settled back down even when an 
immature  Bald flew through the flock a few feet off the ground.
 
I started looking for the reason and the dense flock split and coming  
straight toward us was a barrel chested bird with a fierce face using a few  
wing 
beats and short glides to power across the field, heck it made me want to  
flee. 
I called out to Nancy to get on the bird and the light supercilium,  streaked 
under parts, long broad banded tail, multiple bands across the  primaries and 
secondaries all spelled out immature Goshawk! The bird flew right  over our 
heads not over 75 feet up and kept up a steady cadence of wing beats  and glide 
until it went over the hill. Birds fleeing, marked its progress even  after 
it went out of sight. YEEHAW!!
 
The huge coalesced flock of gulls flew in the opposite direction and  settled 
in the far field. I traveled over to the other road and one sweep of the  
scope yielded FIVE Iceland Gulls. Bad Weather= GREAT  
BIRDS........................
 
 
 
Good  Birding!!!
Jeff R. Wilson
OL'COOT / TLBA
Bartlett,  TN


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