Dave Nutter and I drove up the west side of the lake this morning for a meeting at the Refuge. On the way we drove past and around the quarry on Canoga Road with no sighting of the Gryfalcon. This was around 9:30 am.
After the meeting, around noon, we headed back to the quarry, stopping first at Van Cleef Lake to see if there were any gulls on the ice. When we stopped there Sunday as part of the CBC field trip the lake was completely frozen over, snow-covered, and devoid of gulls. Today there were some 350 gulls out loafing and preening in the snow. We quickly picked out a first year Iceland Gull. Then, as the birds shuffled around, we began to see more. Eventually we tallied an adult Iceland, a Thayers type (now, once again, lumped with Iceland), and an adult Lesser Black-backed Gull. Most of the rest were Herring gulls with some 7 Great Black-backed Gulls thrown in. Viewing conditions were ideal: diffuse light, no wind, and the birds only about 100m away. On the way home we again checked the quarry and surrounding roads. We had a Harrier and Red-tails, but again no Gyr. Bob McGuire -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
