We owe Paul Hurtado for his dogged pursuit of unusual gulls he found in
a night roost at O'Shaughnessy Reservoir recently; yesterday he found
and identified some of these birds near the county dump, where he
suspected they were spending the day.  A young Thayer's gull there was a
first record for Franklin County, and the lesser black-backed and
glaucous gulls seen, new for the year, certainly added to the variety.
        Paul Gardner, Brad Sparks, and I stopped by this spot--Zuber Rd betw
Seeds and Young Rds (old DeLorme 68B-1). We got there by 3:30 pm: we
recommend a morning visit to this spot, when light is behind you. A
couple of thousand gulls were gathered in a low spot in a field to the
south. With unfavorable light and winds gusting to 40 mph, scanning
gulls 3-400 yards away was difficult, but we eventually were finally
able to make out two lesser black-backed gulls in the throng. Within
half an hour more gulls arrived from the north and from the nearby
landfill, and before long a throng of close to 10,000 was wheeling in
the air, eventually passing north, and the field was empty. Whether this
represented the end of their work-day we could not tell because we were
chilled after a day afield and left.
        If you have some skills in identifying gulls, this could be a great
spot for finding unusual ones--the large garbage-gobblers, not the
daintier fish-eaters--this winter. Or you could explore their night
roosts, at O'Shaugnessy and other reservoirs nearby in Delaward County,
late in the day or just at dawn. Folks in other counties who notice
hordes of gulls at dumps, etc., might join in the fun by finding out
where they roost nearby or at night, and advance our knowledge about
Ohio's wintering gulls. There are maybe more, and more species, than you
think.
Bill Whan
Columbus


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