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Subject:

PG Golden Eagle - no; Iceland Gull instead

From:

Jeff Shenot

Reply-To:

Jeff Shenot

Date:

Fri, 10 Dec 2010 10:21:35 -0500

Yesterday on my way home I stopped by the landfill on Brown Station Rd (recycle pad area) to look for the Golden seen earlier this week by Fred.  I saw 4 Balds (2 ad. and 2 im.) and a Red-tailed Hawk, but no Golden.  All were perched on structures of varying sorts.  I only looked from the side of landfill, along the road.  There is very high level of bird activity there now, so it seems there is a possibility that if the Golden saw the landfill, it could be lured by all the food and may stay around for a while.  Many easy targets there for food.  Who knows, worth checking for a few days, right?

From my angle I could see there were high gull numbers and geese as well.  Many gulls were sitting on the grassy mound southeast (to the right from my angle) of where they dump waste.  I went to the parking area at landfill's headquarters, which is not open to public but I have permission to go there.  Much of the landfill is not in view from there but I could get a good look at about 800 of the nearby gulls.  They were resting in the sun, with a slightly greater ratio of Ringers to Herrings.  At 3:15 for some reason they all got up at once.  I was hopeful it was due to an eagle as this is often the case, but I didn't see anything that would have prompted them to get up.  I was surprised by the number of birds though.  About 3 times as many were in the air compared to what I could see when they were on the ground.  Apparently it was simply time to go.

No Golden, however, a nice consolation was an Iceland gull (1st winter) seen well with binoculars only, before all got up.  It was interesting; I watched it being followed/harrassed by an immature 2nd winter Herring gull.  It would walk up to the Iceland and poke at it, not hitting it but sort of jabbing at it to watch its reaction?  The Iceland gull seemed very healthy and normal; and it simply walked further away, ignoring the herring.  It reminded me of when drake mallards go after a hen when she is not interested, but persist in chasing her anyway.  When the gulls lifted, they all circled around in a massive swirl of birds.  There was a bewildering mix of age classes and it was very challenging trying to look through the flock for any white-winged birds (I was unable to see any).  Within a few minutes they all began to disperse, and left (headed toward Upper Marlboro/the Bay.  This left the geese to look at.  So I checked, but all were Canadas.

Will keep looking around...

Cheers!
Jeff Shenot
Croom MD