Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2000 19:43:01 EST Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Mary Ann Todd Subject: Gull escapes MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Talk about gull escapes brings to mind the Silver Gulls at the National Zoo. In the mid 1980s the zoo had a few dozen, kept in the outdoor flight cage. Most of them had NO BANDS of any kind. On at least two occasions we found unbanded Silver Gulls hanging with the Ring-bills and Laughers at Hains Pt (Don't have the dates at hand.) The escaped Silvers would be around for a few days or so, then disappear. Whether they died, or, more likely, adjusted and moved on with the other gulls is unknown. We called the Zoo one time. They were mildly surprised that one of their birds was missing (no head counts each night at lockdown!), but they had no plans to try to get it back. Have not been to that cage in several years. Don't know if the Silver Gulls are still there. Dave ================================================================= To unsubscribe send a message to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey =================================================================