After my small group meeting at church today I headed north to North Point Marina with visions of Purple Sandpiper and Snowy Owl dancing in my head. When I got there, I noticed easily 300 CANADA GEESE. In fact, I think it was the most geese I have seen in one place without being able to pick out at least 1 other species of goose. Just a huge monoculture of Canadas.
Also out on the ice was a nice squadron of gulls. Eager to see if I could refind my Mew-type Gull from Friday, I walked over to the patio behind the yacht club to set up my scope. Now, as a socially conscious birder, one needs to always be aware of the "flushing" distance. That is to say that one needs to be aware of how close they can get to a group of birds before they take off. I used to be pretty good at this, but either I, or the birds, have changed in sensitivity to this issue. In any case, I flushed all gazillion gulls on the ice and the sky was raining gulls for a few minutes afterward. I definitely lost a few in the transition but most of the gulls repositioned themselves back on the ice. After sifting through the gulls, I found nothing of note. Al Stokie, Dave Johnson, and Bob Erickson showed up shortly thereafter and we moved to Stateline Beach to check the beach and view the gulls from a different angle. Nothing of note was at the beach, but the new viewing angle of the gulls uncovered an adult LESSER BLACK-BACKED GULL and a beautiful adult GLAUCOUS GULL. Nice! Bird #68 for Lake County '12.
Never did see the Snowy or the Purple Sandpiper :(
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