Anyone looking for gulls around Columbus should consider bundling up,
grabbing their scope, and heading to the Alum Creek Dam at dawn or before
sundown.  It's cold, so I suggest evenings! Probably best to arrive around
4:30-5pm since by 5:30pm most of the gulls have arrived from the south and
may be too distant to ID easily.

I spent sundown yesterday evening scoping the roosting gull flock at the
south end of Alum Creek Reservoir from the dam.  Numbers were down a bit
from a few days ago (roughly 1000 birds were present, including an increase
in waterfowl numbers), but with some ice forming over the reservoir and out
from the dam, the gulls were in fairly close and gave some excellent scope
views!  There were a decent number of Herring Gulls present, so odds of a
black-backed or white-winged gull showing up are relatively decent. Last
night I had 900+ Ring-billed, 40++ Herring (of all ages), and 1
Bonaparte's. For a complete checklist of birds (including waterfowl) seen
during my visit, see http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S12715442.
The main group was right off of the eastern part of the dam, although a
second more distant group was way up the reservoir and appeared to have
gulls coming in from the north and/or northwest.

There are two parking options I've found work best to access the Alum Creek
Dam, both off of Lewis Center Rd. (Big Walnut Rd.) west of Africa Rd. If I
had the time tonight or tomorrow, I'd bird Hoover late n the day, then take
Big Walnut east from Mudhen Marsh and straight to the Alum Creek Dam. ;-)

The first is the Below Dam Recreation Area which is at the spillway, near
the west end of the dam.
Map:
https://www.google.com/maps?q=Alum+Creek+Below+Dam+Area&hl=en&sll=40.183919,-82.957174&sspn=0.01118,0.022724&t=h&hq=Alum+Creek+Below+Dam&z=15

The second parking option (which requires walking up the rocky, grassy
hillside) is the small parking lot off of Africa Rd. near the east end of
the dam. This is closer to where the gulls were lst night, but either
access point will work.
Map:
https://www.google.com/maps?q=40.183919,-82.957174&hl=en&sll=40.184058,-82.957259&sspn=0.00559,0.011362&t=h&z=16

Happy gulling!
Paul Hurtado
<http://people.mbi.ohio-state.edu/hurtado.10>

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