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Re: Cecil NE Town Park/ Gull Dynamics

From:

Sean McCandless

Reply-To:

Sean McCandless

Date:

Tue, 28 Dec 2010 08:52:49 -0500

Hi all. After reading Rick Cheicante Post of North East Town Park, I feel I should explain some of the Gull dynamics up here so that people understand when, and when not to visit the North East Town Park. I apologize if this message is a bit scrambled. I am writing it in a bit of a hurry.

The Cecil County Landfill is located just a over a mile as the "bird fly" from the North East Town Park and it is up hill aprox. 300 feet in elevation from the town park. The town park is the nearest watering hole around the landfill. Around 7:30- 8:00 am the landfill starts receiving its first sets of garbage trucks. Garbage trucks equal food for the Gulls. The trash, once it is dumped is then ran over with a huge compacting tractor that chops, cuts and crushes the trash into the previous layer. That is a home run for the Gulls. It looks like a feeding frenzy when this is all going on and it is amazing that the gulls don't get run over and crushed themselves. Anyway, once the gulls get their fill, they don't hang around up there to long. They disperse down to the North East Town Park for a good bath, drink and often a rest period. After some rest, it is back up to the landfill for more food and fun. That is why there is so much gull rotation going in and out. Eagles that hang out at the landfill and at the town park will cause the gulls to jump up. They often do a lot of rotation at that point at both ends since they are up in the air anyway.

Often times when the machines shut down at the landfill the last group of gulls shows up at the park around 3:30- 4 PM. The landfill is closed on Sunday. It seems like the gulls disperse on Sunday, but the occasional group can still hang out on the ice and I believe are just patient and wait for Monday before actively feeding again. When it is cold like now, the river is froze and the aerators are running, the best time to view the gulls in my opinion is from 10 AM to 2:00 PM. That seems like the prime time.

Now this might not be all written in stone, it falls in the majority of what happens. There is a flight of Gulls that goes the opposite direction and heads to either the Elk River near my house or heads back up to Delaware. When the water is open, it is a daily occurrence. When things are froze up, the water aerators running at the North East Town Park keep the water from freezing this can be the only open water source easy to reach for a long distances.  That is why the larger concentration of Gulls at the park. The landfill at this point will not receive people for viewing birds, unless you have a scheduled field trip and it is planned way out in advance. Even that can be cancelled by them depending on the construction that is currently going on.

Over the years I have had Iceland, Lesser Black-backed, and what I believe was a 1st cycle Thayer's Gulls fly over my house heading to the Elk River or just the opposite, heading to the landfill. But when things freeze, I hardly see any gulls over my house at all.

Oh, and I did have the Glaucous Gull, 1st Cycle Iceland, and several Lesser Black-backed Gulls at the park on Friday.

Sean McCandless
Cecil  Bird Club Field Trip Coordinator
Elkton, MD