A Different Kind of White-Winged Gull

A couple of years ago, when winters were actually cold, Paul and I noticed an all white gull sitting on the ice outside our back window that overlooks Middle Cove in Essex, Connecticut. Mixed amongst the usual Ring Billed Gulls, this bird looked like a ghost nestled closely with its grouping. The cluster was too far out to see what kind of gull it was...and since we had never seen any of the white gulls before, we were anxious for a better look. So Paul opened the back door, did his best gull cry, and threw pieces of bread onto the snow in the backyard.

Within seconds, the first of the gulls lifted off toward our house, followed by our white gull. Landing in our backyard, begging for more scraps, the bird was indeed strange. After I took this photo, I asked experts, who said it looked like a leucistic Ring-Billed Gull. We never saw it again after that day.

PAUL

Hunters In The Reeds At Hammonasset

Temperatures in the high 50s today as Paul and I spent a few minutes a Hammonasset today. Fog obscured most of the rocks and some of the choppy waves enabled the half dozen loons to play hide and seek with my camera. But it was the Great Blue Heron, typically a common bird we would only rarely give a second look, that caught our attention.

After last night's hard rain, and the south winds blowing the high tide onto the marshes, we found several Great Blue Herons at the marsh edge. One Heron laid low in the reeds, constantly darting its bill into the marshy stream at its feet. Every two attempts yielded a little wiggling fish. It was hard to believe there any fish in that marsh overflow, but here was this master fisher having a feast.


Careful viewing of this large bird shows many surprising details. The bright black and white head cap, looking like a white crowned sparrow, contrasts with the blue gray body. Black and brown patches appear on its shoulders and front. The long throat was lined with white and black stripes before mixing with its gray plumes off its chest. Even the pin feathers off the back of the head show a hint of brown and red.

A very nice bird on an incredible late December day.

--Chris and Paul

Wintering Shorebirds

I spent an hour at Hammonasset Beach in Madison, Connecticut today watching the winter visitors along the beach. The three usual suspects were particularly cooperative as I climbed the jetty rocks at the east end of the park.

Ghostly white Sandlerlings with their black eyes and beaks rested on the jetty rocks just out of the way of the spray. Dunlins were running the beach, poking with their long black bills to find morsels in the sand. And the Ruddy Turnstones, with dark shawls over their shoulders, sat together at several levels of rock trying to rest.

Black and Surf Scoters, along with a couple of Loons, were in their spots, spending more time under water than on top. As a result, no pictures.

--Chris

The Beginning Birder

Sometime in the winter of 2002-2003, my sons and I went on a roadtrip across various coastal locations in Rhode Island looking for seals. We found ourselves at Sachuest National Wildlife Refuge on the southwest tip of Newport Island checking out the wildlife on the many rocks.

Also on the observation platform was a college student peering through a spotting scope, making notes on a clipboard. He was studying the Harlequin Ducks that wintered off Sachuest. We watched as the group of chocolate diving ducks disappeared under the breaking surf, only to pop on the water's surface like fishing bobbers after a strike. They surfed the waves, chased each other, jumped off rocks. The student let the boys look through his scope for closeups of the silly white circles on the impossible brown feathers.

While his brothers were quickly back on the hunt for seals, Paul stayed talking to the student about the Harlequins and other Eiders, Teals, Scaup and Scoters that wintered there. Once home, Paul picked up our Peterson's Guide and began reading and reading about the birds of our area. His interest in birds has continued to grow since then, having seen almost 400 species of bird throughout North America in four years.