Virginia Birders,
Today I led an Augusta Bird Club field trip to the Prince William County
landfill to look at gulls. John and Nancy Spahr, Brenda Tekin, Tom Pendleton,
Claire Mellinger and I enjoyed the good weather and great birds (6 species of
gulls, including California and Iceland, plus Common Raven); we ran into Todd
Day and Bob Abrams (as well as two more birders present briefly) out there as
well. The PWC Landfill people were very accommodating -- I had arranged the
trip in advance, and they took us out to where the gulls were on a bus, letting
us stay as long as we wanted.
Besides the usual Ring-billed, Herring, and Great Black-backed Gulls, we saw
the following:
--1 first-winter California Gull; it teased us by making a brief appearance at
around 13:55 (less than 10 minutes after Todd and Bob had departed!), then
flying far and high to the northeast and out of sight. However, it returned at
around 14:10 and gave us 15 minutes or more of excellent views, both standing
and in flight (often in flight below eye level from distances as close as 40-50
meters). Brenda got some pretty good photos with her digital camera. This is
the second record of California Gull from this location, as I photographed an
adult here on 26 Jan. 2001.
--1 third-winter (?) Iceland Gull; the bird had the wing pattern of an adult
"Kumlien's" Iceland Gull, with a moderate amount of medium to dark gray in the
primaries. The wings and tail showed no signs of immaturity, but the bill
appeared to have no red at all on the gonys and had a fair bit of subterminal
dusky coloration on both mandibles. All 10 of us saw this bird.
--At least 5 Lesser Black-backed Gulls; our group saw 1 or more first-winter, 1
third-winter, and 3 adults, and Todd and Bob had a second-winter as well.
Almost expected, but still neat to see, were two Common Ravens. Todd, Bob, and
I had been talking about this species, saying that we would expect to find them
at this landfill but that none of us (or anyone, to our knowledge) had seen
them here before, and within 10 minutes these birds appeared. Ravens are not
too unusual not far to the west of this location (e.g., western Prince William
and eastern Loudoun County, occasionally into northwestern Fairfax), but I
haven't heard of any recent records this far east in northern VA.
Good birding,
Steve Rottenborn
rottenborn@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Dale City, VA
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