Archive for the ‘Yellow-legged Gull’ Category

Newfoundland gets hot as winter begins

Thursday, December 2nd, 2010

December 1 marks the beginning of the “official” winter bird season, at least in Canada.  The Canadian provinces have a competition to see which one has the most bird species during winter, and for the purposes of this competition, winter is Dec 1 – Feb 28.  Yesterday, on the first day of the competition, Dave Brown (who leads our May tour of Newfoundland; European Golden-Plover is a bit of a target on that tour….hmmm, I see I still need to add that itinerary to the website) found a Black-tailed Gull in St. John’s, only the second record for Newfoundland.  Here are some photos by Jared Clarke, who by the way leads our June tour of Newfoundland and occasionally the winter tour, too:

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So it was a good start to the competition, especially because after seeing the Black-tailed Gull, Jared and Bruce Mactavish found a Slaty-backed Gull standing right next to a Yellow-legged Gull.  They didn’t get photos, but here’s a shot from Jared of a Yellow-legged Gull seen about 10 days ago:

YLGU_Nov22_8820_StJohns_JaredClarke

Did I mention our winter trip, targeting gulls such as Yellow-legged and other goodies is coming up soon?

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The Sacrifice

Wednesday, January 13th, 2010

If you’ve ever chased a vagrant or have been at a hawkwatch, you’ve probably heard someone say it.  After a long period of not seeing anything, someone will say that they’re offering themselves as a sacrifice — they’re leaving so that the bird everyone is looking for will show up or that activity will pick up.  Rarely does it work.

Unfortunately for one person, but fortunately for another person, it did work on our recent St. John’s trip.  Everyone’s main target when visiting St. John’s is Yellow-legged Gull (unless there’s a Lapwing or Redwing around).  In North America, it only occurs regularly at this location.  Weather and luck conspired against finding the Yellow-legged for most of the tour.  One person left early, empty-handed (the early departure was planned before the tour started).  Then two hours after dropping him off at the airport, our group found a Yellow-legged (photos by Jared Clark below).

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I don’t know if it’s related, but the tour ended this morning and a Redwing was found in the afternoon. D’oh!

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