My timing for getting out to Schoolhouse Pond worked out well today and there was a tremendous number of gulls on the ice a little after 1 PM this afternoon, including perhaps my largest count of Ring-billed Gulls recently.  First, with the Ring-billed Gulls:  I started by counting individual gulls and got up to 300 or so, then gave up and just counted estimated groups of 20 to speed things up.  My estimated count was over 1,900!  Included in this group of Ring-billed Gulls was 1 partially leucistic Ring-billed Gull and a banded and wing-tagged gull.  The leucistic gull was an otherwise normal looking adult that had large white patches on the otherwise gray mantle and wing coverts.  The wing-tagged gull was also an adult and had a red tag that read A-73.  When looking at my photos, other numbers appeared to be present which I couldn't make out.

Also present were 102 Herring Gulls, 2 Great Black-backed Gulls (both 1st winter), 1 Lesser Black-backed Gull (also 1st winter), and the 1st winter Iceland Gull.  The Iceland Gull was again feeding along the back edge of the ice and occasionally swam in a small area of open water.

This was definitely the largest group I've had at the pond this winter.  The birds were across a large area of the ice and packed in pretty tightly, so there easily could have been other gulls mixed in with them that I missed.  The local Bald Eagles must have been hanging out at the landfill today.

Fred Shaffer
Crofton, MD