2 February 2013 - Gull Gawking

Last weekend I was poking around on the web trying to find some info on identifying a bird I had seen when I discovered the UBird website. It is run by and for a group of Utah birders who post pictures, take trips, and discuss birds and birding. Under their Trips tab they were showing a trip for Feb 2 - A Gullstravaganza. 

Apparently late January and early February is a great time to see many varieties of gulls. What the heck. I know nothing about gulls, so why not learn something?  I signed up. Then I spent the week waffling about should I go or not. Too cold. Too busy. Too many other things needing to be done. I went. The sun was out, but it was cold. Really glad  I took my wind pants. I went back to the car and pulled them over my levis while everyone was still milling around the parking lot.

About 30 people showed up for this trip.The majority of them were seasoned birders lugging scopes on tripods over their shoulders. A few of us were newbies. It was quite fun. At our first stop, the folks with scopes scanned the hundreds of birds on the pond and would pick something interesting. They would holler out "If you want to see a first year Thayer's gull come over here." Or someone else would yell "I have male and female golden eyes." Those of us without scopes would hustle from scope to scope looking at birds. I did have binoculars but had no idea what I was looking at, so seeing it in a scope, then hearing someone describe what to look for was great. I could then see where they were looking and find it in my binoculars, but the scope view was fabulous.

 We spent quite some time gull gazing and gull gawking at the first pond.  I personally was able to find and identify five different gulls: Thayer's, California, Herring, Glaucous and Ring-billed. In addition to that I saw the first winter juvenile coloration of a Thayer's and a Herring gull. Several members said they saw a Slaty-Backed Gull. I was never sure just what they were looking at. 

The pond also had a nice variety of ducks: Teal, Ruddy, Canvasback and the obligatory Mallards. Lots of coots. Several people identified a Shoveler, but I didn't see it. I did see male and female Golden-Eyes (pretty!), male and female hooded mergansers and a Bufflehead. 

Even with my fairly long lens, the birds were too far away for a good picture. The closest duck with the red and green head is a Teal Duck. The two white birds with black heads are Golden-eyes and the female is the furthest right bird. The white billed birds are coots and there is a Ruddy Duck in front of the coots on the left hand side.

  
 In addition to these we also saw a kestrel and a red-tailed hawk. My life list is growing! 

We moved to the Lee Kay ponds. Our fearless leaders were hoping for some open water over there, but it was totally frozen, and the gull flock was really far away. All those speckles in the middle of the picture are gulls.

  Even closer up you couldn't see much. We were having a bad air day, huge inversion of smog was whiting out the landscape.

 
 We visited four different ponds. I had fun and learned more than I retained. The organizers of the trip were hoping to see 7 to 9 kinds of gulls and were grousing about it. 

I was taken with the goose tracks in the snow. The holes are where some poor goose fell through a softer part of the snow bank. Makes it hard to walk.

 My brother, after hearing I signed up for the trip, wanted to know if I was gullible. Oh dear. I guess so. But he also said I could use his spotting scope! Next time I go to look at birds I will definitely be up close and personal.