Steve Thiessen, Jim Schwarz and I went over to check out the thousands of birds
at Port Washington this morning. We drove through a bit of snow on the way
there, but it had stopped north of Mequon and visibility was good at Port. We
ran into Shaun Putz there and scoped with him - a bit like Jaegerfest, with
worse weather.
We whiffed on our target birds (Slaty-backed Gull, Red-throated Loon and
Harlequin Duck,) but still got a few "year" birds (it was Jim's first trip over
to the big lake this year, so he picked up a lot more.) We had a couple hours
of good viewing before it started to snow again around 11:40.
The gulls moved around a lot, and many were on ice floes out beyond the north
breakwall or off the mouth of the harbor (especially the big dark ones,
unfortunately.) There were at least a dozen each of Great Black-backed,
Glaucous and Iceland/Thayer's, along with a few Lesser Black-backs. There was
a very intriguing adult in the outer harbor that was a few shades darker than a
Herring Gull, but not so dark as a Lesser Black-backed. It was about the size
of a Herring Gull, with a very white head and a red spot on the bill. We
suspected it was a hybrid, but I can't find anything quite like it in that
section of my "Gulls of the Americas" book (which I didn't have along.)
Closest resemblance was to Vega Gull.
We did get a Long-tailed Duck in the lagoon at the end of the discharge
channel. There was a large flock of Cedar Waxwings in a tree by the entrance
to Coal Dock Park. They seemed to be flying down to feed on the numerous
crabapples behind the condos on the creek. We checked them carefully, but
didn't see any larger gray ones.
A fun day despite the cold. At least we drove back out of the snow coming past
West Allis.
Peter Fissel
Madison WI
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