Re: Kelp Gull--nemesis bird

Arlene Ripley (aripley@nestbox.com)
Wed, 03 Mar 1999 15:12:14 -0500


At 07:52 AM 3/3/99 -0500, you wrote:
>
>The 'missing 46 hours' of the St. Mary's Kelp Gull is exactly what
>one would expect of some person's 'nemesis bird'.  Perhaps we can
>do a service here.  Does anyone know of any birder who travelled
>a long way to arrive in St. Mary's during that 46 hour period,
>then had to leave? 

Jim,

I had, as a house guest, a birder from Long Island, New York who drove down
on Monday March 2 for the explicit purpose of seeing the Kelp Gull. From
10:50 on, we were at the Sea Breeze for some 4 hours watching the
Ring-bills and Herring Gulls, then took off for Pt. Lookout and PAX NAS (in
rather miserable weather) for a break and a pretty boring break at that.
Near 5 PM, we once again returned to the Sea Breeze, only to find that the
gull had not reappeared.

The camaraderie at the restaurant almost made up for the absence of the
gull (but then, I had already seen it several times) and my friend even got
interviewed by FOX5 for a newscast that never appeared (what's a story
about a gull without the gull?). To rub salt into the wound, the famous
"cream of crab soup" that I told my friend he would enjoy was also absent.
Evidently the weekend crowd was a bit too much for the restaurant larder
(he didn't get any coleslaw with his crab cake as they had run out of that
too!).

On Tuesday morning, before he had to head back north, we explored the banks
of the Patuxent in Calvert County, hoping to find the gull there. No luck,
so he left.

Imagine my horror when I turned on my computer later that afternoon and
found Jane's update!!

Today I put up a few of my better photos of the gull, in case anyone is
interested in yet another view. They can be found at
<http://www.nestbox.com/kegu.htm>. 








/////////     Arlene Ripley
|      ||     Calvert County, MD
|  0  ||     aripley@nestbox.com
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