As I've posted in the past, many mornings on my walk around Schoolhouse 
Pond a tremendous number of birds fly over the pond.  Many are gulls, 
apparently heading for the nearby Brown Station Road landfill.  Other birds of 
note are also sometimes seen.  I decided to go out to the pond today (from 7 
until a little after 8) and see what flyovers I could find today.  For today, I 
decided just to concentrate on the birds overhead, and not do my usual walk 
around the pond.

As expected, huge numbers of gulls flew over.  My final tally for the hour of 
watching included:

Over 1,080 noisy Laughing Gulls
411 Ring-billed Gulls (mainly 1st year)
328 Herring Gulls (again, mostly immature)
19 Bonaparte's Gulls

I enjoy hearing the constant stream of Laughers overhead, and was glad to 
see the Bonies as well.  The Bonaparte's Gulls went over in groups of 4, 7, 3, 
3, 1, and 1.  There have been good numbers of Bonies flying over each day 
this week.  Schoolhouse Pond seems to lie directly under the path that 
hundreds of gulls take each morning towards the Brown Station landfill.  This 
has always been the case that I can remember, and good numbers of gulls 
can be seen in fall, winter, and spring making this daily "commute".  This 
movement usually occurs for an hour or so after it gets light each morning.  I 
don't know if the Bonies were also heading to the landfill or somewhere else, 
but they were flying with the large numbers of more common gulls.  This is the 
only time of year that I regularly see Bonaparte's Gulls at or over the pond.

Also flying over today was 1 Caspian Tern, 7 Common Loons (very high up), 
and 1 adult Little Blue Heron.  The Little Blue Heron flew over the pond, than 
drifted leisurely for one loop over the pond before flying on.   

I bumped into several other birders who were looking for the Painted Bunting 
without success, at least when I left.  I took a quick look behind the County 
Adminsitration Building without seeing anything unusual before I had to 
leave.   I went back in the middle afternoon and sat at one of the tables in 
the courtyard for about 20 minutes.  I only saw some Chipping Sparrows, 
House Sparrows, Robins, Grackles, Mockingbirds, and some high flyover 
Laughing Gulls heading in the opposite direction from this morning (towards Jug 
Bay).

Fred Shaffer
Patuxent MOS