Greetings Ontbirders,
This morning Bill Gilmour and I had a pretty impressive showing of big
gulls from Owen Pt. at Presqu'ile. The birds were moving around quite
a bit but were either on the tip of Owen Pt., the few remaining gravel
bars offshore, or the east tip of Gull Island. In total we saw 4
Lesser Black-backs (3 ad., 1 2nd summer), at least 8 Iceland Gulls of
all ages, at least 3 imm. Glaucous Gulls, plus a presumed adult or
near adult "Nelson's" Gull - (Glaucous x Herring). Another gull
showing some characters of an adult Thayers (black wingtips with
extensive white, what looked like a dark eye) was seen on Gull Is. but
mantle colour was the same as adjacent Herrings/Ring-bills so it
likely has Iceland elements to it.
The Lesser Black-backs are especially interesting since the adults
appear to be of both sexes, based on size and head shape, and the sub-
adult was moving around with a small branch in its beak for 5 minutes.
Otherwise a fair number of species around but numbers of individual
migrants remain low.
Cheers,
Doug McRae
Directions: Presqu'ile Provincial Park is on the north shore of Lake
Ontario between Cobourg and Belleville. It is well signed from either
Hwy 401 or Hwy 2.
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