Very belatedly, I would like to offer some thoughts about the astonishing Franklin's Gull flight of 13 November 2015, partly inspired by Bobby's intriguing post.
Now several weeks after the flight, summaries and interpretations have been prepared and digested: http://birdcast.info/forecast/migration-story-mid-latitude-cyclones-plains-temperature-anomalies-edmund-fitzgerald-and-franklins-gulls-part-2/ In particular, parallels have been drawn between this year's incursion and a similar one in November 1998: https://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/journals/nab/v053n01/p00012-p00019.pdf I'd like to add two ideas to the discussion: (1) a suggestion to the weather history enthusiasts in our community to examine 27 October 2010 as another potential example of a similar phenomenon; and (2) some questions about how and why the birds ended up where they did. (1) On 27 October 2010, Ken Feustel found a hatching-year Franklin's Gull at Robert Moses SP, Suffolk County, Long Island. A number of us raced there very quickly, hoping to see this locally very rare species, but narrowly missed it. Broadening our search, we found numbers of Lesser Black-backed Gulls (a parallel to Bobby's experience, and also our own, this year), but almost absurdly, Patricia Lindsay found a different, adult, Franklin's Gull at nearby Captree SP. Although eBird shows only one other Franklin's Gull along the northeast/mid-Atlantic coast during Oct-Dec 2010, that bird was also found on precisely the same date, 27 Oct, in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. It seems very likely that others passed undetected that day. The weather-map aficionados will probably remember this period, because in the days immediately following, a remarkable series of vagrants appeared on Long Island, including Common Ground-Dove and multiple Cave Swallows--which were associated with this year's system also. (2) On 13 Nov 2015, Pat and I were stranded on Block Island, where all ferries were canceled due to the high winds. Birding was tough that day, in contrast to the much blander previous day, when we and others had conducted our annual CBC-style November count on the island. A very striking contrast between the two days involved the overall numbers of gulls. On the windy 13th, we found vastly more large gulls on the island than had been present a day before, include 7 (vs. 2) Lesser Black-backs. We also found 4 Franklin's Gulls, in keeping with the amazing theme of that day. Clearly, the large gulls were aggregated there because the winds discouraged them from their normal feeding patterns, whereas the Franklin's Gulls were there because they had traveled from somewhere far to the west. Just one day later, almost no Franklin's Gulls could be found. Perhaps they fled south, or maybe they went out to sea (there is an over-representation of pelagic records among northeastern records of Franklin's Gulls), or maybe they did something else that reduced detection (one of the wind maps from the preceding days showed air flows at 1000 meters, so maybe by the 14th, all those Franklin's Gulls were just gazing down at us from vast heights!). And the Lesser Black-backed Gulls had melted away as well. Isn't it odd that these two utterly contrasting species have correlated November occurrence in our area? My point is that there's a lot we don't know about why it seemed as though one could just drive up to any spot on the east coast on 13 Nov and see a Franklin's Gull. They had to get here, and then they had to behave in a way that allowed us to detect them. Given that they were capable of hunkering down under high winds on the 13th, why didn't they simply hunker down in Iowa (or wherever they came from) in the first place? In the same vein, were the Common Ground-Doves forcibly ripped from the ground and blown multi-hundreds of kilometers, or were they, in some sense, willing to go along? Shai Mitra Bay Shore ________________________________________ From: [email protected] [[email protected]] on behalf of Robert Berlingeri [[email protected]] Sent: Friday, November 13, 2015 5:55 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [nysbirds-l] More Gulls While at the tail end of my travels today on the south shore of Nassau County, I was at Tobay Beach (JFK Bird Sactuary) when I came across 4 Leeser Black-backed Gulls resting in the Parking lot. - Not sure if these have any relation to the recent unprecidented influx of Franklin's Gulls in our area, or if these are lingering birds which I had at this location on Oct. 3. Perhaps these came from points to the north, migrating slowly under mild conditions with prolonged SW winds? - One of the birds was a full adult, 2 1st year birds, and one in between. Only 23 other Gulls were with the LBBG's: 15 Herring, 5 GBBG, and 3 RB Gulls. The only Laughing Gulls I had today were in the Field 6 Lot at Jones Beach, whereas hundreds, and beyond have been in Hempstead Harbor in recent days, apparently feeding on baitfish getting pushed up to the surface by larger fish - also probably slow to migrate I would think. Interesting stuff all around...... Bobby Berlingeri Elmont, NY -- ________________________________ Sixth Annual Celestial Ball Honors Community Leaders and Raises Funds for the College’s Greatest Needs. Join Us!<http://www.csi.cuny.edu/celestialball/> -- 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/ --
