On Wednesday Jean Iron, Kevin McLaughlin, Betsy Potter, and I birded the Niagara River from the Adam Beck overlook at the power plants up to the control gates in Chippewa and back again to Adam Beck. There were more gulls in this area on this day than I have seen at any other time this season. It was great! Adam Beck was really amazing with at least 20 ICELAND GULLS, 3 THAYER'S GULLS, 3 GLAUCOUS GULLS, and 4 LESSER BLACK-BACKED GULLS, including a sharply marked juvenile. One of the Lesser Black-backed Gulls, an adult, was an interesting pale example of the species and it also had bright orange-yellow legs and feet (almost all Lessers have much duller greenish yellow legs and feet at this time of year). We identified it based on the heavy head and neck streaking and relatively little white in the wingtips. Another alternative is that it has some Herring Gull genes in it from a hybrid pairing of a previous generation. Its size was close to that of a Herring Gull, just slightly smaller, so probably a male. In addition here, we had a possible adult HERRING X GREAT BLACK-BACKED GULL and three other apparent hybrid gulls, possibly HERRING X LESSER BLACK-BACKED (we were unable to turn any of these into a Vega Gull, though we tried!). Above the falls, we had 2 GLAUCOUS, 3 ICELAND, and a handful of LESSER BLACK-BACKED GULLS. We also had a slightly darker-mantled adult gull, out on the large flat rock island below the control gates, that appeared to be the bird which has been suggested as being a Yellow-legged Gull. Unfortunately, its legs were never visible and since we had all seen it before, we moved on before we were able to confirm that. Photos of the gull with yellow legs can be seen on my Flickr site, starting about the third row down: http://www.flickr.com/photos/107683885@N07/
There was also a large influx of BONAPARTE'S GULLS, with many at Adam Beck, the Whirlpool, and above the falls. The only other small gull we saw this day was a juvenile BLACK-LEGGED KITTIWAKE at the Adam Beck overlook, picked out by Betsy. We did not find the Purple Sandpipers nor the Red Phalarope that were above the falls in the beginning of the month. Good birding! Willie DIRECTIONS: Many of the spots along the Niagara River can be viewed from either side but the Adam Beck overlook on the Ontario side is hard to beat. This overlook is right across from the (NY) Robert Moses Power Plant in Queenston, Ontario, about 0.6 miles (1 km) south of the Lewiston-Queenston bridge. The pull-off below the Control Gates in Chippewa, Ontario is about a mile above the falls. It is just north of where Upper Falls Blvd meets the Niagara Parkway, which runs along the river. There are no parking signs here but the police tolerate birders if they stay near their cars. ------------------ Willie D'Anna Betsy Potter Wilson, NY dannapotterATroadrunner.com http://www.betsypottersart.com <http://www.betsypottersart.com/> 2013 Big Year: http://www.betsypottersart.com/willie-s-photos/2013-big-year/ Big Year List: http://www.happtech.com/BigYearDanna/CurrentList/ShowCurrentListTable.aspx Odenates: http://www.betsypottersart.com/willie-s-photos/dragonflies -- 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/ --
