From south-bay-birds-bounces+south-bay-birds-archive=[[email protected]] Tue Feb 11 15:30:51 2003 Received: from www.plaidworks.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by plaidworks.com (8.12.6/8.12.2) with ESMTP id h1BNSP4s025102 for <[[email protected]]>; Tue, 11 Feb 2003 15:28:26 -0800 (PST) Received: from imo-m05.mx.aol.com (imo-m05.mx.aol.com [64.12.136.8]) by plaidworks.com (8.12.6/8.12.2) with ESMTP id h1BNRiSE025068 for <[[email protected]]>; Tue, 11 Feb 2003 15:27:44 -0800 (PST) Received: from [[email protected]] by imo-m05.mx.aol.com (mail_out_v34.21.) id t.1c2.4e09267 (4184) for <[[email protected]]>; Tue, 11 Feb 2003 18:27:16 -0500 (EST) From: [[email protected]] Message-ID: <[[email protected]]> Date: Tue, 11 Feb 2003 18:27:16 EST To: [[email protected]] MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: AOL 7.0 for Windows US sub 10634 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1 Subject: [SBB] First winter Glaucous Gull, Salt Pond A18 X-BeenThere: [[email protected]] X-Mailman-Version: 2.1 Precedence: list List-Id: South Bay Birding List-Unsubscribe: , List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Sender: south-bay-birds-bounces+south-bay-birds-archive=[[email protected]] Errors-To: south-bay-birds-bounces+south-bay-birds-archive=[[email protected]] All, This morning Frank Vanslager and I decided to try for the Glaucous Gull recently found in Salt Pond A16 by Mike Rogers. In Alviso we happened across Pat Kenny and Roland Kenner who were also looking for the Glaucous Gull. Our first stop was at the Marina Parking lot, a quick scan of the impoundment north of the lot revealed only a few gulls, none being "white" enough. Our next stop was the Environmental Education Center and Salt Pond A-16 (a RING-NECKED PHEASANT was spotted just south of the entrance road). A fairly long, cold walk along the southern edge of the pond, to the southwest corner of the pond failed to produced the desired gull. While we were there we also scanned the northern edge of the impoundment (same one scanned earlier from the southern end) finding a single SANDERLING, a few DUNLIN, GREATER YELLO WLEGS, WILLET, etc., but no "white" Gulls. A second? Sanderling was later found on the second island from the western edge of Salt Pond A-16. Several (5-6) dead Gulls were also noted on the first island from the eastern edge of the pond. (Still no visible Owls in the nest box located near the parking lot.) We then went to the Coyote Creek Field Station (lots of Dowitchers in the first slag pond). A fairly quick search of the "Waterbird Pond" failed to produce the desired Gull among the hundreds of Gulls there, ditto the Processing Plant located north of the pond (this area seemed to contain a high percentage of young Gulls). Then after a futile search of the Coyote Creek tidal mud flats we decided to check out Salt Pond A-18. This pond was fairly empty with only a few Gulls located on the wooden structure below and between the Power Towers. Though a long distance away after a while I managed to find a fairly light colored Gull that eventually showed it's unfortunately all black bill. Later as I was mentally deciding on a next course of action, assuming we had missed the boat, Frank located an essentially all white Gull with white primaries and a bicolored bill. This bird was certainly a GLAUCOUS GULL and well worth the long walk to verify it's markings. We were eventually able to get to within approximately 100 yd. of the bird with scope filling views (at 100X) using Franks Questar and (at 60X) using my Pentax ED80. The bird was bigger than the biggest gulls near it, (HERRING & THAYER'S GULLS), had a flat crown, a dark eye, a long pinkish bill with a well formed black tip, pure white wingtips and tertials while the white undertail coverts and undertail were buffy barred. The lower legs and feet were a light charcoal gray with a pinkish cast to them. We assume that the lower legs and feet were either stained or dirty as the knees and above were pink. A life bird for Pat and Roland which could well be the same bird seen by Mike Rogers on Sunday 2/9/03 as it was probably no more than a mile from where it was seen (A-18 is the next Salt Pond east of A16). Take care, Bob Reiling, 3:00 PM, 2/11/03 _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. south-bay-birds mailing list ([[email protected]]) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://www.plaidworks.com/mailman/options/south-bay-birds/south-bay-birds-archive%40plaidworks.com This email sent to [[email protected]]