There seem to be some early signs of a Franklin's gull incursion this fall, so I poked around in the records. This Great Plains breeder is an oddball in many ways. Uniquely among our gulls, it molts twice in a year. And I recall seeing a colony in Colorado when my brother and I were birding out there; I admit I cried out "Ross's gulls!" when I saw all those pinkish gulls out in a marsh. Peterjohn calls them "accidental" and "casual to rare" inland in Ohio depending on season, but Franklin Co has records of forty-plus Franklin's, along with the first state record a few miles away in Licking County in 1906, and four specimens from the some locality. Larger Ohio movements of Franklin's seem to accompany strong winds from the west in fall, and there are some early signs of extras this year. Back in 1998, 340+ were reported to the Ohio Cardinal, and there must have been many more. A lot of them were seen along Lk Erie and and inland reservoirs, but many were found in agricultural fields, especially accompanying ring-billeds foraging while fall plowing was going on and few observers pad attention. Most of these birds appeared in November that year. You wonder how many Franklin's are missed as we heedlessly drive by inland gull flocks. In the fall of 2003, 65 were reported, 59 of them inland. In fall of 2001 32 were reported inland, only one along the Lake. Only eight were reported in 2004, seven inland--mostly at reservoirs. Fifteen in the fall of 2007 were all seen inland. I could go on, but I suspect the chances of seeing this bird in fall here are better inland...if we bother to be alert. 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]