Date: Sat, 7 Apr 2001 18:53:55 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: "Kurt R. Schwarz" Subject: Re: 5-6 Little Gulls today @Back River MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit My apologies re doubting the existence of Bridge Restaurant. It wasn't obvious to me from Eastern Blvd, nor from the bridge. In any case, I am delighted that others located some, and did a better job of it than I did. My birds were too far out, and my skills too rudimentary to make a serious stab at aging them. The general lack of black on the wings seems, to me, to indicate they were adult birds. No hood visible. Is the exagerated up and down flight pattern, relative to the Bonaparte's, a reliable behavioral mark for Littles? Kurt Schwarz Howard County white-crown@home.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gail Mackiernan" To: Sent: Saturday, April 07, 2001 3:10 PM Subject: [MDOSPREY] 5-6 Little Gulls today @Back River > Hi all -- > > Barry and I just got back from Back River, and it was a very good day. We > first went down to the river at the site below the bridge at the closed > restaurant parking lot (which DOES exist -- just drive down to water's > edge behind Royal Farms, *past* garages -- there is a sign, Bridge Restaurant) > and saw 1-2 first winter birds flying out with the Bonies. Pete Webb and > a friend drove up just as the birds appeared to fly back upriver, so we all > went to Diamond Point (access from Diamond Pt. Rd., across wet grassy field). > There we hit the jackpot with at least two first winter birds, two winter- > plumaged adults, and one summer-plumaged adult -- both flying around and > giving brilliant looks, and also sitting on the mudflat, also giving excellent > looks at all features of structure and plumage. There *may* have been three > immature birds there today. Barry reckons that, based on plumages, he has > seen 9 or 10 different individual Little Gulls this year on Back River. Only > one of these has actually been inside the plant, however. > > The only down side is that the Franklin's Gull reported earlier in the week > was not seen, and we had only two Laughing Gulls (inside the WWTP); otherwise > the usual assortiment of gulls and a nice summer-plumaged Caspian tern gave > us a flyby. > > Cheers, Gail Mackiernan and Barry Cooper > Colesville, MD > Colesville, MD > > ======================================================================= > To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com > with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey > ======================================================================= > ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================