On 3/25 I went looking for Pipits after work. The closest best fields I could think of were just a few miles east of Alliance (Stark County) . I headed east on 62 and turned south on Bandy Road (just inside of Colunmbiana County) for about .3 mi. to scope out a low wet farm field. I didn't see any Pipits but there were a good number of gulls. Scanning through them I found 2 adult
Lesser Black-backed gulls with about 60 Ring-billed, 6 Herring and 3 Bonaparte's Gulls. These gulls were observed the next morning by Ben Morrison and Kent Miller who said that the number of Ring-billed, Herring and Bonaparte's had increased. They also found the Pipits that I was hoping for, about 250 of them!
Fast forward to today--3/28. Ronnie Macko and I are headed east on route 62 to visit my dad in the Salem hospital around
2:00 p.m. We decide to see if the Lesser Black-backed's were still around. We found an increased number of all the gulls previously mentioned and saw 4 adult Lesser Black-backed Gulls. We did not have time to look at the immatures very well.
We called Bob and Denise Lane who live fairly close to this area and they came out and found 6 adult Lesser Black-backed
Gulls. On our way home we stopped there again. By that time, roughly 4:30, the gulls had spread out a little and we found most of them a little further down Bandy Road in the field on the southeast corner of Bandy and Hartley Roads. We
are pretty sure there were also at least 2 first winter Lesser Black-backed Gulls.
Total number of gulls:
Lesser black-backed 6 adult, plus possible 2 first winter
Ring-billed 150
Herring 100
Bonaparte's 40 (some with nice hoods)
So this is pretty interesting in light of Bill Whan's informative post about Lesser Blabk-backed Gulls. And he is right. It sure is a treat to see them in breeding plumage. This seems like an unprecedented number around here. If you go straight north to Lake Erie from this field it is probably 67 miles or a little more. If you go at an angle toward Cleveland it is still over 50 miles.
I have only ever seen one in this area and that was at Walborn Reservoir. Something to think about.
Also, other birds seen here the last few days: Pectoral Sandpiper, Least Sandpiper, Lesser Yellowlegs (Bob and Denise), American Pipit (Ben and Kent), Blue-winged Teal, Mallard, Canada Goose, Great Blue Heron (seen carrying sticks by Bob and Denise), Robins, mixed blackbirds, Crows.
Good birding to all,
Shari Jackson and Ronnie Macko
Alliance
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