Dear All

Greg Butcher and I did the Anacostia gull roost and the Arboretum for xbiils this morning with some though not great results.

I checked the Tidal Basin at about 6.45am en route to the Anacostia and there were no gulls there although i passed quite a few gulls sitting on the ice in washington channel as I went down the 395.  Unfortunately, by the time I got down to the Anacostia many of the gulls were on the move and by the time I had set up the scope etc about 70% of the birds had left.  Anyway, the remaining birds includeed four Lesser-black Backs - two ad, one 3rd yr, one 1st yr - which was nice.  One of the adults was extremely pale but I got good views and it was a def LBBG.

Also on the river were two Hooded Mersg and a very nice and really obliging Ad winter Long-tailed Duck.

The Arboretum was very quiet and a thorough xbill search yielded nothing whatsoever of note.  The best we managed was six Cedar Waxwings.

It seems like the DC locale xbills have moved on.  I have not seen one since Tuesday afternoon around our house and I checked Woodend yesterday to no avail.  I was kinda hoping that the cold front midweek would bring in more of them rather than clear out what we had.  Ah well it was good fun whilst it lasted.

Greg then took a look at the Constitution gardens duck ponds and reported that the Redhead is still there.

Lovely day....

Gary Allport

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