Hi Everyone,

I made a trip today to look for the BLACK-HEADED GULL that Hans found on
Thursday, and a little persistence paid off. On my third visit between
jaunts around PG, Calvert, and Charles Counties--at around 2:00 p.m.--I
immediately noticed a greatly increased number of gulls. Joe Hanfman was
there scanning, and we sorted through them while chatting. It wasn't long
before we'd picked out a beautiful first-year GLAUCOUS GULL not more than 50
yards from the main platform, towering over the surround Ring-billed Gulls. 

There were at least 700 gulls on the pond at the time, primarily Ring-billed
but also plenty of Herring and a few Laughing Gulls, and many more circling
overhead. After about 20 minutes of scanning, I decided to do one more quick
pass, then head home. To my great surprise, I spotted it almost
immediately--and it's really hard to miss when you get on it! Just when I'd
had my fill of shooting fairly distant photos and was again ready to pack it
up, the gull decided it wanted to look good on the Internet and flew to
about 50 feet from us :)

I've posted a few shots to my web page at www.billhubick.com/birds.html
(click Black-headed Gull from the alphabetical list on the left). What a
beautiful bird--and it was my first in North America. I'll take a
"continent-bird" any day :) Thanks for posting, Hans!
 
By the way, I tried for the Thayer's Gull that Matt and George found, too,
but didn't have any luck. There were only a handful of the more expected
gulls on the dock behind the restaurant. Thanks for posting, too, George :)

Have a great weekend, and happy holidays!

Bill

Bill Hubick
Linthicum, Maryland

www.billhubick.com