Hi all,

Bill Hubick, Dan Small and I birded various spots in Worcester (with a stop
in Wicomico) on Saturday 28 January.  We started at Truitt's Landing where
we searched the GREEN-WINGED TEAL flock for anything unusual, the flock was
amazingly loud!!  We then headed to North Vaughn where we were happy to
relocate the CLAY-COLORED SPARROW found by Dave Czaplak a few weeks ago, we
also found a juvenile WHITE-CROWNED SPARROW that had multiple
characteristics in line with the Gambel's subspecies, including pale lores
and a yellow-orange bill, there is some debate about what an integrade
would look like, but this one seemed pretty interesting.  The birds were
seen in the scrub along the entrance road, we continued working the area
for a couple of hours finding impressive numbers of the expected species.
From there we headed to the Worcester Landfill where we found our highlight
of the day, Bill spotted an interesting first cycle gull that we focused on
documenting and studying for most of our time in the landfill, it had
several characteristics supportive of Glaucous-winged x Herring Gull hybrid
or Slaty-backed Gull.  To be sure this is an area of gull identification
that is truly in it's early stages with a lot of ID pitfalls, so there is a
good chance that this one will remain unresolved, however it is an exciting
area to delve into!  The bird was quite worn compared to the other gulls,
it had brown primaries with pale edges, on the open wing the primaries
showed the "venetian blind" effect with pale inner webs and darker outer
webs, the secondary bar was noticeably dark, the bird was a dark blotchy
brown overall, and had noticeably pink legs as compared to adjacent
American Herring Gulls, photos of the bird can be seen below.  Dan then
spotted an adult presumed LESSER BLACK-BACKED x HERRING GULL hybrid, the
mantle was much darker than the surrounding American Herrings and the legs
were a yellowish pink, Bill also spotted a first cycle KUMLIEN'S ICELAND
GULL before we had to leave.  We headed to Salisbury Landfill only to find
the more expected species.  We ended the day at the inlet with Rob
Ostrowski where we saw the usual suspects including continuing HARLEQUIN
DUCKS, and COMMON EIDERS, unfortunately no definitive looks at any of the
recently reported Razorbill's.

Photos of the interesting gull can be seen at:
http://www.billhubick.com/photos/updates/gull_20120128.php

Good Birding!

Mikey Lutmerding
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikeycerw/
Croom, MD

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