When I was in Florida last month, I described the pleasures of sorting through gull flocks on the beach, in shorts, with gulls so close that binocs were barely needed. Today I sampled sorting through gull flocks, northern-style, with parka, mittens, and scoping a distant flock. Here in New Jersey, one of the best locations to search for the rarer winter gulls is in the small parks alongside the Delaware River in Florence. This location is just upstream of a deep bend in the river, with a landfill on the Pennsylvania side. That combination is like catnip for gulls.
This was my first trip to Florence, with the main targets being Lesser Black-backed Gull and the two white-winged gulls: Iceland and Glaucous, all of which occur here annually, and which have been sighted recently. The only problem is that the weather here has been frigid, with a mix of snow and rain yesterday that froze overnight making for treacherous walking, and the temperatures only reached a high of 24 degrees with winds in the 15-20 mph range. Oh well, as they say, there’s no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing, so I bundled up and went out, undaunted. (although I did end up taking one nasty spill, ending up horizontal in the parking lot)
When I arrived, the gulls were there in big numbers. Unfortunately, when I was at the upstream park, the gulls were primarily downstream, and when I drove to the downstream park…well, you can guess where they went. Eventually we got in synch and I found myself with a huge flock of gulls on the ice and floating down the river in front of me.
A portion of the main flock, consisting of thousands of Herring Gulls, hundreds of Great Black-backed Gulls, a smattering of Ring-billed Gulls, and a few ‘interesting’ gull needles mixed in this veritable white haystack.
Glaucous Gull is currently my birding nemesis; the Great White Gull for me has been The Invisible Gull. So I was particularly focused on finding birds with all-white wings and white-or-pale bodies. Gladly, I found one fairly quickly, but it turned out to be an Iceland Gull despite my best efforts to convert it to a Glaucous. Its pale appearance was obvious whether sitting on the ice or in flight, and at least this sighting confirmed that I can recognize white gulls.
An Iceland Gull beside Herring Gulls for a good size comparison. Notice how the overall washed out appearance and pale wings are immediately apparent beside the grayer Herring Gulls.
Iceland Gull in flight remains relatively conspicuous with its pale wingtips compared to the Herring Gulls that appear to have dipped their wingtips in black ink.
The vast majority of gulls present here were Herring Gulls, and I found it surprisingly easy to recognize adult Lesser Black-backed Gulls mixed in the flock. Their steely-gray body was intermediate between that of the more familiar Herring and Great Black-backed Gulls, as you can see in the photo below. The streaked head and smaller size than Herring Gulls confirmed the identification.
Here we have an adult Lesser Black-backed Gull in the company of three Herring Gulls. Note the steely-gray wing and streaked head, and slightly smaller size of the Lesser Black-backed Gull on the left, compared to the more familiar Herring Gulls.
Over the course of 2 1/2 hours I was able to spot 5 Lesser Black-backed and 7 Iceland Gulls, a successful day by any measure, since I don’t remember ever seeing more than singletons of either species in a single day previously. Glaucous Gull did not make an appearance, as expected for a worthy nemesis. There is still time for a return visit to Florence over the next month to search again before they depart for their northerly summer homes, preferably on a day without icy parking lots, and with warmer temps and less wind. I think I was spoiled by Florida-style gull watching.