Taking advantage of the chance to look at gulls without freezing to death, I visited the Huron pier (Erie County) for a couple of hours late this afternoon. Gull numbers were far lower than they can be at times, but for purposes of studying plumage variation in Herring Gulls, it was very worthwhile. My count / estimate totals were Herring Gull 1100, Ring-billed Gull 1300, Great Black-backed Gull 23, Glaucous Gull 1 (a beautiful first-cycle bird). Perhaps the most surprising thing was the absence of Lesser Black-backed Gulls (they've been in double digits around Toledo recently).

I also saw a probable first-cycle California Gull. I'm not going to report it as a record, and I'm not working on a list so I don't have to worry about whether to "count" it; I'm mentioning it only for the sake of anyone else who may check this area and may get a better look at (or closer photos of) the bird. Essentially it looked like a slightly smaller first-winter Herring Gull with notably long wingtips, a pink bill with a sharply defined black tip, a subtly different head shape, and strong crossbars on the scapulars. If I had seen this bird in California or northwest Mexico (where I used to study gulls every winter) I would have called it a California Gull without a second thought. But I think that we need to hold to a higher standard for identifying the species here. There is SO MUCH variation in first-winter Herring Gulls that my bird could have been an individual of that species that just happened to vary in all the ways that I described. For me to feel 100 percent sure on the ID, I would have wanted to see it fly, to see whether it had solidly dark inner primaries and the typical slim-bodied flight profile. But the whole time I was there the bird was just sitting, in a very distant scope view with other gulls, so I'm leaving it as a "probable."

Incidentally, tomorrow (Sunday the 8th) might not be a good time to visit. A local resident told me that the huge old mill and grain silos near the rivermouth are going to be blown up tomorrow (!), at about 3 in the afternoon, and that they're expecting 20,000 people to come and watch. If that story is true, parking could be a problem. So you might want to put it off as a birding destination for another day.


Kenn Kaufman
Oak Harbor, Ohio



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