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 ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]