Date: Sat, 15 Feb 2003 08:16:07 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: "George M. Jett" Subject: Thayer's Gull at Charles County Landfill Comments: To: SMAS Comments: cc: Miliff@aol.com, Jim Stasz , Robert Ringler , mh1920@aol.com MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Folks Yesterday afternoon I located a white-winged gull at the Charles County Landfill. The bird, which I photographed, fits all the characteristics of a first winter Thayer's Gull. The bird was slightly smaller and less bulky than Herring Gull, had an all black bill which was daintier than the Herring Gull bill, but most notably had distinctive whitish edging in the upper primaries while at rest. This latter mark was absent in all the first winter Herring Gulls I located. I first found the bird on the ground but had three occasions to observe the bird in flight. Sometimes Bald Eagles help. In flight I could see that the underwing was clearly white in contrast to the upperwing. I could also see that the secondaries were edged blackish and slightly darker than the mantle. The birds overall appearance was more darkly barred than the Iceland gull I had at the landfill on January 20, 2003. I was unable to get a photo of the bird in flight, but hopefully the numerous images of the bird on the ground with wings raised and at rest will appear on the MDBirds Gallery soon. This bird was darker than the Thayer's Gull I photographed in the Salisbury, Maryland landfill in 1998 (Published in Birding Magazine, 33(6) 507), but was clearly a white-winged gull. If the weather does not deteriate today, I will attempt to relocate this bird, and report. The landfill is located on Billingsley Road, off of Rt. 5 south of Waldorf, Md. Delorme 37, D2. Good Birding George ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================