This imorning I did my first full walk around the pond since the huge snowfalls.  Much of the snow has melted, but there are still areas where it is pretty tough walking.  Nothing too unusual present, but I did have the usual flyover Ring-billed and Herring Gulls, a flyover immature Bald Eagle, 10 Northern Shovelers, a calling Eastern Bluebird, and a lot of the usual woodpeckers, including a Hairy Woodpecker.  Sparrows consisted of Song and White-throated, with the more unusual species having moved on.

At lunchtime, there was a very large group of gulls on the ice and area of open water.  The gulls were largely absent from the pond last week, except for high flyovers.  However, today they were back and I counted over 900 Ring-billed Gulls, 64 Herring Gulls (33 adults, 5 3rd winter, 8 2nd winter, 18 1st winter), and 4 Great Black-backed Gulls (2 adults, 1 3rd winter, and 1 1st winter).  More gulls were still coming in (the Great Black-backed Gulls weren't present until my final scan through the flock).

Fred Shaffer
Crofton, Anne Arundel