I found a 1st winter to spring? Black-headed Gull on the north end of the Central Park Reservoir today. It was mixed in with a dense group of Ring-billed Gulls resting on the exposed causeway not ten yards from the pump house. This is possibly the same one found recently by Tom Fiore, but definitely a separate bird than the one found by Ken Shama about a month earlier, which was a non-breeding adult. I am aware of another one sighted this weekend on the Reservoir, but a description of that bird is unknown to me. The BHGU from today had dark red legs,a dark red bill that was blackish at the tip. It also showed brownish secondary coverts on folded wings. The head was not in molt and had ear spots and two blackish bands across the head. I am uncertain of the age of this individual and would appreciate any light more experienced birders might shed on this for me. Gull numbers on the Reservoir were up in general as they had been quite low over the past week, though I hadn't checked this weekend. I estimated they were at 4 to 5 thousand when I arrived at 12:30. No sign of the Iceland/Kumlien's, though I had only about 15 minutes before I had to literally sprint back to work in time for my afternoon class. A note to Central Park regulars: I did not send out an alert on the NYNYBIRD group because the BHGU flew off or blended in very successfully while I was fumbling to try to obtain a digi-binned image with my phone. I not see which direction it flew off to nor was I able to relocate it when I finally looked up again. The south end of the causeway is a good bet for anyone trying for it before the gulls fly out. There were big groups of RBGU's there.
Good Luck, Nadir Souirgi -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
