This evening I was treated to some great excitement (3 FOY birds).  The big 
obvious highlight when I got home this eve was the large flock of gulls (~520) 
resting on the mudflats above the (old) railroad crossing at Jug Bay.  There 
was also a gathering of gulls below this area, but they were farther down 
toward Jackson Landing and not very visible from my vantage.  Both groups 
had a lot of vocalizing.  5:25 - 6:00pm.

I immediately noticed the large number of "hooded" gulls, up til yesterday I 
had only seen up to four at once.  Today I counted 205!  I was hoping to see 
an uncommon gull, and looking for a Little Gull (no luck), but I think it's only a 
matter of time before one is spotted somewhere around here.

While scanning through the gulls, I noticed a small bird very briefly before a 
gull moved in front of it and obscued my view.  My first impression was a 
FORSTER'S TERN (FOY).  Since my view of the FOTE was so brief I wanted to 
see it again, and to my surprise another Forster's Tern flew into my field of 
view and landed right next to the first one - 2 Forster's Terns!  Both were still 
in winter plumage.

As I continued scanning, another bird that wasn't moving at all grabbed my 
attention - a CASPIAN TERN (FOY)!  This beauty was not in winter plumage 
and I thought it was really early to see one (unlike FOTE), so I checked the 
yellow book when I got home and it shows the MD Yellow book early date is 3-
31.  If this is right, this beats it by 7 days!  If that is accurate for MD's early 
date, I suppose this was my best find, but I still had one more surprise...

I kept going with my Laughing Gull count, and scanned almost to the end of 
the group when another find "jumped" out at me.  An ICELAND GULL (FOY)!  I 
later looked up the plumage but I am uncertain if it was a 1st or 2nd winter 
bird, since it had bits of both plumage/bill field marks.  The "scalloping" was 
not very evident, and it apppeared to have a greyish wash (mantle) over the 
scapular area.  It was noticeably heavy chested and round headed, though it 
seemed very pale (relative to the Herring and Ring-billed Gulls it was next to) 
for an immature.  The amount of dark color on its bill was a bit confusing, 
being more extensive than my gull book (Olsen and Larsson) shows.  I suppose 
maybe it had a dirty bill?  Its bill was bicolored but darker on top.

Laughing Gull  205
Herring Gull 140
Ring-billed Gull 175
Iceland Gull 1
Forster's Tern 2
Caspian Tern 1

A great evening!
Jeff Shenot
Croom MD