[MDOsprey] St. Mary's County Kelp Gull, 8/15/99
POWERSALEX@aol.com
Sun, 15 Aug 1999 23:16:22 EDT
Hello MDOyspreyers --
A report of a Maryland bird from Virginia family!
My wife, son and I took my brother from Rochester, NY to Sandgates to see the
Kelp Gull, which had been reported there most recently on 8/13/99 by Jane
Kostenko. We arrived at the Sea Breeze Restaurant at 10:00 am. No Kelp
Gull, and the Restaurant wasn't open either, so we went down to Point Lookout
to see whether the Red-necked Phalarope could be relocated. No luck there
either. We met up with another brother and his wife at Point Lookout, and we
all saw Spotted SP, Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs and Killdeer in the second
pond on the right from the end of the point, but nothing at all in the last
pond on the right. We also saw/heard Fish Crow, and Osprey, D-C Cormorant,
Belted Kingfisher, Herring and Great Black-backed Gulls, Eastern Kingbird and
heard a Carolina Wren.
We went back to the Sea Breeze at about 3:00 pm. It was crowded with
patrons, but no obvious birders (we had bins, scopes, books and tired
expressions -- obvious and frustrated birders). There were Great
Black-backed, Herring, Ring-billed and Laughing Gulls and Forester's and
Common Terns, but still no Kelp Gull. So we ordered Cream of Crab soup, Hard
Crabs, shrimp and drinks and settled in for a very satisfying meal.
Some in our large, sated party finished early and drifted out to the dock to
look for the Kelp again. And there it was! On a piling of the dock to the
left of the Sea Breeze dock. It had its back to us, standing, so it took a
while and our best scopes to determine that when it turned toward us it had
orange oculars, red gonys on a yellow bill and greenish-yellow legs. Its
back was black and its size was slightly smaller than the Herring Gull
perched beside it. We all agreed that the Kelp was not as large as the
Great Black-backed Gulls perched on the pilings earlier in the day. After a
while it flew up river to the fourth dock from the Sea Breeze past the
Sandgates Restaurant, showing us badly worn trailing white wing feathers and
mirrors on the 9th primaries.
It landed on a piling where an Osprey sat atop a pole eating a fish. Another
Osprey sat about ten feet away. The Kelp perched on this piling until we
finally had to leave for the return trip about 5:45 pm.
Jack, Janet and Daniel Powers
Alexandria, Virginia
powersalex@aol.com