Anything Larus: Gull Frolic 2014

19 February 2014

Gull Frolic 2014

Gull Frolic 2014 started out sort of slow, but picked up with a big punch after lunch. I was really worried the gulls would not cooperate this year as they've been staying outside of the harbor all winter and resting on the ice well off-shore. This is the first winter ever where I've observed the gulls do this. That is, the first winter where they've prefered to rest out on the lake rather than on the docks in the harbor. Polar Vortex? I'm not sure, but I don't like it!

Birders on the "board-walk" studying the gulls in the harbor!

I, as always, tried to keep a gull-list, which is almost impossible to do accurately given all the gull traffic and various sightings made by different people. What birds are re-counts? What birds haven't been counted, and so on and so forth. We did tally 8 gull species with a new Frolic species: SLATY-BACKED GULL.

Slaty-backed Gull (adult). North Point Marina. Winthrop Harbor, IL. 15 Feb 2014.

This Asian gem caused a lot of excitment throughout the day. Birders went back and forth to the Lake County Fairgrounds, nearly 15 miles away, where it was giving great looks in the parking lot. I spotted the bird the previous day with Maarten van Kleinwee, and the gull gods sent it back for many a birder to check off on Gull Frolic Day! To read more about this bird's initial sighting click here.

During the last 45 minutes of the Frolic, as we were cleaning up and organizing furniture, Matthew Winks ran in to tell us the bird was out in the harbor. We ran outside like children trying to catch the ice-cream truck and watched it put on a nice 20 minute show. It passed us several times, spent time bathing and resting, and finally picked up and flew out on the lake with most of the gulls. We were stoked: