Mew Gull - adult, form uncertain, Niles Pond, East Gloucester, Essex Co., MA. January 20th, 2010. Here with Great Black-backed, American Herring and Glaucous Gulls. Adult Mew Gull found at the last minute, right at the end of an afternoon of concentrated gull watching at Niles Pond, East Gloucester. Conditions deteriorated towards the end of the day with bitterly cold winds and heavy flurries of snow, therefore Nick Bonomo is to be commended for picking out this bird just as we were thinking about leaving. We observed it for twelve minutes before flew off SE out to sea. Nick also managed to pull some decent digiscoped shots which can be seen at his excellent Shorebirder blog.
Initially thought to be brachyrynchus, there appear to be strong similarities between this bird and a well photographed bird at Brace Cove in early December, 2009. Phil Brown has an excellent image set of that bird here and a write-up by Rick Heil suggesting kamtschatschensis for the Brace Cove bird, actually first found by Rick in Gloucester Harbor in late November. Nick and I are seriously considering the possibility that our sighting involves the bird same......more to follow.
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