Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Oh So Gullible

I wasn't specifically in Iowa for the birds last weekend, but as any other addict can attest...one manages to fit in some time all the same. Eastern Iowa isn't the birdiest of places in winter. It doesn't benefit (consistently) from the boreal winter species, the Crossbills, Redpolls, Northern Shrikes or Gallinaceous birds. It also loses most of its spring and summer residents, and this ultimately results in a fairly depauperated bird population until later March. 
With the terrestrial bird scene so desolate, the Mississippi River provides one large artery--a life line, if you will--for desperate winter birders. If one is willing to brave the cold and icy wind, there are plenty of Gulls and Waterfowl, along with scores of Bald Eagles, wherever there's still some flowing water. Herring and Ring-billed Gulls make up the vast majority of the Gull population, but Thayer's, Black-backed, and Iceland are also known to mingle in these big noisy groups. When our other birding leads grew cold, the Iowa Voice and I spent time trying to pick some rare individuals out. I do not think we saw any Iceland but we got at least one mature/adult Thayer's, of which I did not get any presentable photos. The shots below feature only Ring-billed and Herring Gulls, but do show some of the multifarious plumage messes with which unfortunate birders must deal. I know that with anything larus, I am very gullible...(that's right, I went there!)


My best bet at photographing a Thayer's Gull came with this immature bird. Adult Herring and Thayer's Gulls look very similar, and the immatures do too. Since I had very little experience to draw upon with Gulls, I had to defer to my Sibley's guide. The guide shows young Thayer's having mottled markings all up the base of the tail, like this bird, but also lighter secondaries and primaries on the wings.  The rump on this bird looked good for Thayer's, but that's a more variable characteristic and the wings indicated a Herring Gull, as was confirmed when I later conferred with some Gull Guys.


The immature Herring Gull below had the standard white rump shown in the Sibley's, and while I never held out hope that it was anything but a Herring, the synchronized pursuit of an opportunistic Ring-billed Gull made for an interesting encounter. 


As the rookie Herring Gull tried to get away with its catch, the Ring-billed matched it wing beat for wing beat, stroke for stroke, pressuring and harrying this greenhorn Gull to drop its lunch. These birds had pretty impressive, if also antagonistic, high-speed synchronization. It would make the Russian and Chinese Olympians envious for sure, and here they were showcasing along the frigid Mississippi. This scene could definitely have used some slow-motion video and a classical music soundtrack.


Above the Mississippi River and the nearby dam there was a massive, swirling cloud of screeching Gulls. Like a large, aggressive school of fish, they'd turn and fluctuate together, riding the currents and looking for any opportunity to feed. Soon after this Herring Gulls made its catch, both it and its pursuer disappeared back into the amorphous larus mass above and, so the extent of my knowledge, were never seen nor heard from again.


So I didn't come away with any conclusive Thayer's or Iceland photos to share, but there was some excitement on the river, more in fact than I was expecting in the inclement conditions. 

10 comments:

  1. Once again you made the most of challenging circumstances AND you made me smile as I enjoyed the narrative, Laurence. My son in law from Phoenix texted me images of snow on the ground today. Did you bring that back with you from Iowa?

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    1. Yeah, I didn't know my desiccated skin and dandruff was getting that bad this winter but..err wait never mind. Weather was crazy today. We had intermittent marble-sized hail followed by sunshine followed by hail again, with snow elsewhere in the valley too.

      Alas, I didn't see any Redpolls in the mix.

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  2. I have to ask Laurence...what constitutes a "full-plumaged" bird?

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    1. I guess I should've said 'final-plumaged' bird (final adult phase being the idea).

      Yer pickier n' a hungry California Gull on a fish carcass Seagull.

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  3. And it was blazing cold, that's for sure. I didn't get any pictures of the Thayer's, period. But my kids had fun! Next time you come to Iowa, try not coming during the deadest birding month of the year! February in Iowa is good for absolutely nothing other than to make the eventual coming of Spring all that more awesome feeling.

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    1. I definitely got a taste of that last aspect. Much like the birds, I need to winter down south and then head northward later this year. Til' then!

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  4. Wisconsin is the same way. No birds, or few birds in winter huddling in secret warm reeds along our rivers and Lake Michigan. Yet the Gulls and Canadian Geese love it! I was thinking about going out in March but I think Kathie and I are going to bird like crazy and try and get those Plovers and Warbler....plus migration. Should be pretty exciting. As for the gulls....

    Oh the gulls. So many of them growing up.

    You know I love birds. I grew up with them on Lake Michigan. Thousands of them. And it's a strange thing. Gulls make me laugh with their behaviors and interactions with people, but I don't like them. They're beautiful birds but they bore me. And that's a finger wag at me for being a birder. When they come to the desert, it's like a gift. There's only one and someone has already ID'd it. I go to see it and smile. One less gull to count later on:) I feel terrible for writing that but it's true. I think it was growing up around them that twisted me so:) We went to Bird Island off of Rocky Point last year and I snapped a billion pics of all the cool sea birds.....and I discovered I didn't put any energy into REALLY looking at the gulls. I was more interested, and in love, with the Terns, Boobies, Willets, Avocets, Tropicbird, Plovers, Sandpipers, etc, etc.

    Do you have a group of birds like that? Or do you have birder friends that think like that? I'm hoping a Sabines or Bonapartes will change my tune. If I'm going to do this seriously, I have to make a concentrated effort on the Gulls:) The ones in your post love my cold city all year round. Ring-bills especially. And some exotic gulls have made their way into our town causing loud squacks among the birders in Manitowoc county. I'm glad you got a taste of the area. Last year the Gulls took over abandoned buildings and created a massive $%^# storm(literally!:) on the Lakeshore area. I don't know how they got the approval to do it, but they sent in people to exterminate thousands of them and that broke my heart. It may be that attitude growing up that has influenced my relationship with gulls.

    Thank you counselor for listening:) Glad you had some fun:) That whipping wind along the water issssss cooooooooold this time of year!:)

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  5. I can sympathize Chris. There's such a wealth of lifers in those Gulls, in with many other pelagic birds, but yes the sorting and IDing seems very tedious. Some people are built for an enjoy it, but I am not one of those. I lie to try and pick the odd one out, but generally I am glad to benefit from an isolated, already ID's individual in the desert like you.

    I like seeing the easy Gulls in easy places, like the Black-backed in New Jersey or Heermann's in San Diego, because they're basically big easy lifers that aren't much afraid of people.

    I think plenty of people have a similar hesitance on the Gulls, or even for Sparrows, but the serious birder can only put them off for so long...
    I'm already dreading when, 30 years down the road, I've seen most of the Arizona/southwest birds and will have to start going out on nauseating pelagic trips to get Shearwaters and Petrels and all those oceanic North American birds.

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    1. Oh good, it's not just me then:) I do look forward to those arctic trips on boats, but for now, I'm sticking to the tropics. I figure I'll do the uncomfortable humid weather now with major hikes and then later on when I slow down, I can do those sit and bird from the car type trips:) And at some point, I'm going to need to hire a professional birder or two with the Shearwaters and Petrels ID. Someone recently told me that I couldn't afford those kinds of trips on a teacher's salary:) Well I never!:) I don't need to go on those trips to find qualified guides:) I've already had some fantastic ones that cost me less than half the amount:)

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    2. Well we can team up and go halfsies on a pro pelagic guide then!

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