The over-achieving Laughing Gulls at Violette's Lock are a great find for the county!
The Horned Gebes, Coots, teal, Bonaparte's and Ring-billed Gulls are stopping on the Potomac primarily to feed on aquatic insects.
The Ringbill nortbound flight in Feb corresponded to the enormous emergence of Stoneflies(Plecoptera). Millions and millions of insects. The April flight of Bonaparte's seems to involve more of a mix of different species. By May it will be damselflies, caddisflies, mayflies...
The Horned Gebe that spent all of last summer at Violettes ate mostly bugs, lazily drifting around snapping one up every ten seconds. Like floating in a bowl of corn chips.
Dave Czaplak
On Apr 12, 2013, at 3:56 PM, Clive Harris <clivegharris...> wrote:
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> Moving onto Seneca/Riley's Lock I had about 100 Bonaparte's Gulls fly past down towards the rapids with a few Ring-billed Gulls mixed in. A Forster's Tern (very pale-winged) was working the Va bank upstream. The Bonies rafted with about 20 Horned Grebe and all these birds seemed to be feeding by picking something - flies? - from the surface of the water. First time I have seen the grebes do that. There were also several Yellow Palm warblers around and a single Yellow-throated singing by the turning basin. As I was about to leave I heard the call of a Laughing Gull and saw 2 adults circling over the Bonie flock - I did not see them settle.
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