[texbirds] Northeast Austin gulls - California and Lesser Black-backed
- From: Eric Carpenter <ecarpe@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: Texbirds <texbirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 7 Dec 2013 17:42:09 -0600
'Twas a a productive day of gull-watching in ne. Austin despite the
frosty temps (was 28-30 degrees most of the day). Except for a couple
of breaks to thaw out and regain feeling in my fingers, I spent from
10.25am to a little past 4pm today (7 December) scoping out the gulls
in the area of the landfills in far northeast Austin. Since you are
not allowed in the landfills (I asked today), the best (and probably
only) vantage point is about a quarter-mile down Blue Goose Road east
of Giles Rd. You can park your car where a new road/subdivision is
starting to be built out and then walk off the shoulder of Blue Goose
the next .1 to .2 miles to check out (scope needed) the gulls moving
in & out of the small retention pond on the landfill property. When
the landfill is not open/trash not being actively dumped, there can be
ZERO gulls here. I don't think they are open on Sundays but are the
rest of the week.
There were substantially more gulls today then I usually find with
perhaps a couple thousand Ring-billeds all told. Finding anything
other than Ring-billeds is usually a challenge here but through the
course of the day, I was also able to locate:
- 2 Franklin's (1 first-cycle - photo'ed, 1 adult)
- 8-9 Herrings (all first-cycle except for one second-cycle)
- 1 California (first-cycle - photo'ed)
- 1 Lesser Black-backed (first-cycle, not photo'ed but studied well in
flight and sitting on water)
The California and the Lesser Black-backed are perhaps the same
interesting gull "spuh's" that Rich Kostecke had photographed over
Thanksgiving on Lake Travis. I have occasionally pondered where
exactly the Austin gulls roost and how far they travel on a
daily/weekly basis and it doesn't seem far-fetched to me that the same
gulls that make it as far west as Lake Travis make it to the landfill
and back during the season.
--
Eric Carpenter
Austin
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