At 1:15 pm, as I was leaving Hunt Valley Mall after lunch, I drove through a flock of 25 Ring-billed Gulls in the large parking lot in front of Best Buy on the eastern side of the Mall. I had no binocular or camera with me, but I noticed that the last bird in the flock was a bit smaller. I drove past it with the window open, and thought, "oh, there's a Bonaparte's." But when I looked closer, the bird had a nice red bill on it and was larger than a Bony - a nice Black-headed! It allowed me to view it at ten feet through my open window, unalarmed. I quickly drove back to the office, retrieved a small camera, and re-found the bird and snapped some pics of it from very close range.
The bird is a beautiful winter adult in perfect plumage. Pics will be available here as soon as I can get flickr to accept them...it's having problems uploading them right now: http://www.flickr.com/photos/yawncelot/.
It should be noted that this location is very close to Paper Mill Flats where a Black-headed showed up last winter, so I wouldn't be surprised if that is where it is spending some of it's time as well.
Russ Ruffing
Woodstock, Maryland
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