Thayer's trio, Cape Ann, MA - 01/13

A return visit to Cape Ann with Scott Surner, mostly in pursuit of the Slaty-backed Gull, produced another exceptional gull show at Niles Pond, Eastern Point. Although the Slaty-backed didn't show up during our six hour vigil, we and our friends were stunned to have not one, not two but three Thayer's Gulls at close range towards the end of the afternoon! Later review of the images revealed that one of the birds had been well seen on January 5th and 10th, but two others, also first-cycle birds, appeared to be new. Erik Nielson who birded with us for some of the afternoon saw all three of these birds and was certain that a first-cycle Thayer's that he'd seen the previous day at Niles was not amongst them. Images of all three birds appear here.

First cycle Thayer's Gull - bird #1, discovered at around 14:10hrs.


First cycle Thayer's Gull - bird #1, with Kumlien's Gull in foreground.


First cycle Thayer's Gull - bird #1. Showing brown centers to tertials and black-brown primaries with neat pale fringes.


First cycle Thayer's Gull - bird #1. Nice shot of spread wings, courtesy of Scott Surner. Shows dark brown outer webs of outer primaries with paler inner webs creating two-tone effect. This bird did have a dark secondary bar which isn't shown that well in this shot.


First cycle Thayer's Gull - bird #1. Very easily lost amongst smithsonianus, especially if the the bird was partly obscured. The Thayer's is in the foreground, second from the left.

First cycle Thayer's Gull - bird #2, discovered at around 15:15hrs on the ice at very close range. Very subtle and delicate patterning to upperparts, but again showing solidly brown centered tertials and much darker brown primaries, neatly tipped and edged whitish. Beautiful bird.

First cycle Thayer's Gull - bird #2.

First cycle Thayer's Gull - bird #2, stretching wing. Direct comparison with first-cycle American Herring Gull. Slightly smaller, more delicately built than smithsonianus with more delicate (less coarse) patterning above and lighter tones to both tertial centers and primaries.


First cycle Thayer's Gull - bird #2. Not a great angle, but the darker secondary bar can be seen. The primaries appear to be the darkest part of the plumage, darker than the broad mid-brown tail band.


First cycle Thayer's Gulls - bird #2 in foreground and bird #3 at rear.


First cycle Thayer's Gulls - bird #2 in foreground and bird #3 at rear. The bird at the rear is almost certainly the same that Brian Kane and I initially discovered in Gloucester's Inner Harbor on January 5th, and I subsequently saw at Niles Pond on January 10th.



Another great (perhaps unprecedented) day with the Cape Ann gulls. We also think that something in the region of 40+ Kumlien's Gulls used Niles Pond during the course of the day.
Many thanks to Scott for driving us out there, and the use of one of his images here.


For web references, Jeff Poklen's stunning image set of Thayer's Gulls from California is really worth a visit. Check out the broad variation in first-cycle birds. All the images are worth viewing.

JPS.

Female Barrow's Goldeneye, Turner's Falls, MA.

A quick drive up to Turner's Falls on a gorgeous, almost spring-like afternoon produced this close female Barrow's Goldeneye on the power canal. Presumably the regular wintering female, but having it this close seemed to make the bill look brighter orange and cleaner than usual. On most of my recent visits to Turner's the female Barrow's has flown in late with Common Goldeneyes, usually after sunset.

The gull situation at Barton Cove was quite nice with a couple of Lesser Black-backeds (1 adult and one 3rd-cycle), but somewhat surprisingly, no pale-winged gulls. Scott Surner was already there when I arrived, and Tom Pirro rolled up a little later and together we enjoyed a calling fly-over Snow Bunting as we watched the gulls. Plenty of Bald Eagle activity too. I saw three adults together over Turner's Falls town, and a juvenile over Barton Cove. The latter bird managed flush all the gulls present putting an end to our evening.

On the passerine front, the sounds of American Robins, Redpolls, Pine Grosbeaks and Pine Siskins can still be heard daily around High Street and North Whitney Street in Amherst, but the Cedar Waxwings seem to have moved on.



JPS.

Dark Kumlien's Gull, Cape Ann - 01/10

Kumlien's Gull - dark first-cycle front left, pale bird to the right.

Kumlien's Gull dark first-cycle front right.

Kumlien's Gull - dark first-cycle front left.

Kumlien's Gulls - dark first-cycle front left, lighter bird to the right and first-cycle Glaucous upper left.

Kumlien's Gull - dark first-cycle front center.

Another highlight from the January 10th gull session at Niles Pond. A beautiful dark first-cycle Kumlien's Gull found late in the day, but thankfully it walked across the ice to provide these wonderful views at close range in direct comparison with American Herring and more typically plumaged first-cycle Kumlien's Gulls. This is possibly the darkest that I've seen since this bird at Rochester WWTP, NH in December 2004.

Although on the dark side for Kumlien's, the plumage is remarkably uniform in tone and markings. A Thayer's of similar age and color should show contrastingly dark blackish-brown primaries amongst other features.


JPS.

More on Thayer's Gulls, Cape Ann, MA - 01/10

First-cycle Thayer's Gull (center)

First-cycle Thayer's Gull (center)

First-cycle Thayer's Gull (center). Note dark brown primaries, much darker than tertials or tail band.

About two and a half hours after I lost track of the Slaty-backed Gull, a tremendous number of resting and bathing gulls had built up at Niles Pond. I'd positioned myself close to an open spot in the ice where the gulls were bathing and could hardly believe my luck when last weekend's Thayer's Gull from Gloucester Harbor popped-up right in front of me! It gave exquisite views, and this time I got some reasonable flight shots through my bins. The Thayer's situation at Niles Pond today was simply amazing. I had three 1st-cycle birds, and the probable 2nd-cycle from December 30th. I think all except one had been recorded before by either Erik Neilson, Marshall Illiff, and myself with Brian Kane last week. Sadly, none of the other three birds offered the same photographic opportunities as this one.



NB. I'll be adding a few annotations to these pics soon.


GB,


JPS.

Slaty-backed Gull, Cape Ann, MA - 01/10

(right most bird)

My third visit to Cape Ann in less than three weeks and finally one of the adult Slaty-backed Gulls (first found by David Sibley on December 23rd) shows up at Niles Pond whilst I'm there! Just when I was settling down to enjoy it, the whole flock (less than 300 birds) spooked for some unknown reason and that was that. About half of them came back to rest on the ice but the Slaty-backed wasn't one of them. I had him in view for just six short minutes. Despite regular attempts to get away, I remained to 'glued' to Niles Pond for the rest of the day with some compelling gulling keeping occupied for about six hours!

Interestingly this bird doesn't look as dark or as heavily blotched as this bird in Phil Brown's superb shots from the same site on December 26th. However, my views were distant and I'd like better views before trying to work out which individual it was today.

The digiscopes are distant and poor, but a Slaty-backed it is.


GB,



JPS.

More on Cape Ann Redpolls, MA.

David Sibley's excellent new blog features an extremely interesting perspective on Redpoll identification, especially relevant given the current widespread incursion of both species into the New England states and beyond. Apart from lively discussion of some Hoary-like individuals, David has developed a scoring system for redpoll identification neatly illustrated in this plate on his blog.

Looking at this got me thinking about a couple of birds which I happily left undetermined at Niles Pond, Cape Ann on December 30th. The same flock contained two excellent Hoary Redpolls, but at least two others with relatively white rumps and a confusingly Hoary-like appearance were present. In short, I decided to leave both of them unidentified based largely on the multiple streaking on the undertail coverts. Both birds appeared to show more than three streaks on the undertail coverts which I'd always thought to be outside of an acceptable range for Hoary, but otherwise, essentially, they looked very Hoary-like to me.

Even more interesting, David questions the notion that pale Common Redpolls exist at all, which was one of the possibilities put forward for these two birds at Cape Ann on December 30th. All in all, it's intriguing stuff.

Redpoll sp (upper bird) - with Common Redpolls.

Redpoll sp (upper bird) - with Common Redpolls.


1) Redpoll sp (upper bird) - with Common Redpolls. Overall rather Hoary-like with very light streaking along the flanks and a nice yellow-ochre wash around the face, but the undertail coverts show about four rather light (but well marked) streaks.

2) Redpoll sp - a different bird with a very frosty look but with a line of three reasonably well defined streaks on the right hand side of the undertail coverts. Otherwise mostly white rump, plain auriculars and yellow-ochre wash around the face. This bird had brownish-gray upperparts, rather warmer than the colder gray of the two Hoaries present.

GB,

JPS.

White-headed Vulture Trigonoceps occipitalis

From a recent trip to The Gambia. We came across two White-headed Vultures Trigonoceps occipitalis drinking at a waterhole by the North Bank road at Nyanga Bantang. Rare and declining throughout much of its sub-Saharan African range and considered 'vulnerable' by Birdlife International. Surely one of the World's most attractive vultures.............



All of the flight images were taken through binoculars.



JPS.