Tag Archives: Gulls

Short-eared Owl, November 1, 2015

Tis’ the season for Short-eared Owls at Montrose. This morning I kicked one up out of the western panne in the dunes. The bird flew out over the lake and circled around a few times before I walked away and lost sight of it. This is typical Short-eared Owl behavior at Montrose, and sometimes they come back and sometimes they don’t.

Migration is really winding down, especially passerine migration, but I did have a few other birds, including:

Great Black-backed Gull – 1 second cycle type
Sanderling – 2
Ruby-crowned Kinglet – 1
Golden-crowned Kinglet – 1
Hermit Thrush – ~10
Yellow-rumped Warbler – 1
Palm Warbler – 1
Winter Wren – 2
American Pipit – 1
Swamp Sparrow – 1
White-crowned Sparrow – 1
Savannah Sparrow – 1
Pine Siskin – ~40
Lapland Longspur – 2
Rusty Blackbird – 1

That’s about everything. In another couple of weeks there will be even less.

Short-eared Owl and Franklin’s Gulls, October 29, 2015

Snow Buntings

Snow Buntings (click to see the larger version)

The gusty west winds produced a Short-eared Owl and 9 Franklin’s Gulls this morning, October 29. The owl flushed out of the dunes and the Franklin’s flew south over the east end of the beach. I only spent an hour in the field so I imagine there were more Franklin’s moving. I also had a Greater Yellowlegs on the beach, a Wilson’s Snipe in the dunes, 2 Snow Buntings, and 15 or so Pine Siskins at the point. The Snow Buntings posed obligingly on the fishing pier for a photograph (try to ignore the graffiti).

Baird’s Sandpiper, October 18, 2015

Baird's Sandpiper

Baird’s Sandpiper (click to see the larger version)

I had a late juvenile Baird’s Sandpiper this morning, October 18. This is over a month past their peak time of occurance. I also had a first cycle Franklin’s Gull on the beach and 6 Lapland Longspurs in the dunes. Other landbirds seen include 2 Purple Finches, several Pine Siskins, and a few Orange-crowned Warblers, in addition to the usual mid October fare of kinglets, Hermit Thrushes, Winter Wrens, and White-throated Sparrows.

Bonaparte’s Gulls, April 25, 2015

There was a lot of activity on the lake at Montrose this morning, April 25, including good numbers of Caspian Terns, Double-crested Cormorants, and Red-breasted Mergansers. More exciting were the Bonaparte’s Gulls. In about 45 minutes I estimate I had about 200 moving north past the point, and I only stopped looking when the rain started coming down in earnest. Bonaparte’s Gulls have become rare at Montrose in the spring, so seeing this many was a pleasant surprise. I also had a single Common Loon and White-winged Scoter and flocks of Lesser Scaup. Migrant landbirds were scarce, as would be expected with northeast winds.

Great Black-backed Gull and Red-throated Loon, January 19, 2015

Great Black-backed Gull

Great Black-backed Gull (click to see the larger version)

A walk around Montrose this morning, January 19, yielded a couple good birds. While I was scanning the lake from the fishing pier I saw a Red-throated Loon on the water a few hundred yards offshore. The bird was slowly drifting to the north and I thought I could get a better look at it by walking north on the pier as it swam north but I lost sight of it. Red-throated Loons are rare in winter at Montrose, though they are the expected loon at this time of the year.

I also had a first cycle Great Black-backed Gull near the parking lot adjacent to the bathroom building. The bird was actually up on the grass feeding on handouts like a Ring-billed Gull, a behavior I don’t think I’ve seen before for GBBG. The bird also has a bad left foot as can be seen in the photo below. I saw nothing else of note.

Quincy Ivory Gull, January 3, 2015

Ivory Gull

Adult Ivory Gull at Quincy, Illinois. Photo by Amar Ayyash. (click to see the larger version)

After getting off to a late start Karen and I arrived at Lock and Dam 21 at 3:00 on the afternoon of January 3, 2015 to look for the adult Ivory Gull found a couple days earlier by local birder Jason Mullins. I didn’t need Ivory Gull for anything, having seen the 1991/92 Chicago bird and several others in Iowa and Wisconsin, but Karen needed it for a lifer, so we decided to make the long trek to Quincy, Illinois to look for the bird after reading that it was seen that morning. I was also reluctant to go because of the inclement weather and forecast poor road conditions, but the only precipitation we encountered was liquid, so the roads were just wet and not icy as I had feared.

At about 4:00 a fellow from Kansas spotted the bird standing on a small ice floe about a mile up river and probably in Missouri waters from where we were at the lock and dam. We could tell it was little Pagophila but we wanted better looks so we got in our cars and raced north. Just south of the bridge we saw a group of birders with scopes standing in a parking lot next to the river and when we got closer one of them pointed out over the river, so we knew they had the Ivory Gull. After some fumbling around we were able to get on the bird with our scopes, though it was still a long way off. We watched it preen and bath and nearly become a meal for a couple Bald Eagles (there are a lot of Bald Eagles around Quincy). We didn’t have the same mouth watering looks that others had but we saw the bird reasonably well and Karen got her lifer and I got my second Illinois Ivory Gull.