Spent 2.30-5 pm at the PW landfill today. Cold but very bearable as little or
no wind.
The regular birds were all there, of course:
Bald Eagle (one adult caused chaos every now and then by flying low over the
area)
Red-tailed Hawk (in the adjacent woodland)
Turkey Vulture
Black Vulture
Greater Black-backed Gull (all ages)
Herring Gull (all ages)
Ring-billed Gull (all ages)
American Crow
Fish Crow
European Starling.
There was no sign of any 'pale' gulls - Glaucous, Glaucous-winged or Iceland
- of any age. More surprisingly, in view of recent reports, I did not find
any Lesser Black-backed Gulls of 2nd winter or later plumages. [While I did
not find any 1st winter LBBGs, or any Thayer's, I could easily have
over-looked these.]
What puzzled me was a 2nd winter 'ring-billed' gull, which I was able to
examine very closely for a substantial period. When at rest, it had a fully
gray back, with a faint white crescent half-way up the back and a broad white
area ahead of the black wing tips [see Sibley to see better what I mean]; the
tail was white, except for 4 very small back spots; no sign of any black
markings on the tertials; legs, gray-green; bill, not quite yellow, with
black ring, not apparently smaller than standard for Ring-billed Gull; eye,
completely dark; markings on the white head were small distinct and quite
black smudges, some of which extended on to the breast; wing-tips showed only
very small amounts of white.
According to Sibley et al, 2nd year Ring-billed Gulls should have yellow legs
and pale eyes. Whereas Mew Gulls have gray-green legs and dark eyes! My
potential excitement was, however, rather muted for a couple of reasons
(never mind the rarity of Mew Gulls in Virginia):
- the bill did not seem to me to be smaller than for standard
Ring-bills;
- after looking at a few other 2nd year Ring-bills, I found a whole
range of leg colors and relative darkness of eyes (though no other had the
solidly dark eye of the target bird).
Could one of the gull experts confirm that what I saw was a Ring-billed Gull?
Stephen Eccles
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