comparative flycatching June 18, 2005
Though this journal purports to be about piping plovers, long time readers know it's really all about gulls and radios. Especially gulls. Especially today. I just noticed I've written Larus minutus on the lid of my coffee cup. It's not every day you see a life bird over your morning coffee. But then again, normal people probably aren't having their first cup of the day on the south end of the PRNWR beach surrounded by gulls. For the first hour or so of the shift, it was just me and a mixed flock of gulls at the south end of the refuge. I had plenty of time to sort through the ringbills, Bonapartes', and seemingly gargantuan herring gulls. I'm counting the Bonapartes' when I spot one that's way smaller. Fortunately for me, the flock takes a short flight over to the waterline so I can see in flight that this miniature gull has dark underwings. A little gull! My first ever despite many previous attempts to will a Bonaparte's into being a little gull. There's another small one foraging in the wrack and it's got a pink cast to its underparts. Would that I could make that into a Ross' gull, but it's an immature little gull. That makes two. Cool. A stream of some kind of sand flies, bigger than the midges I mentioned last week (nobody has yet emailed to tell me the etymology of calling them mingies). It's like a continuous black current running north just above the sand. This proves of great interest to the gulls and starts attracting other birds. The Bonaparte's and little gulls thrust their heads forward with beaks open to catch the flies. The ringbills catch them in the air like giant flycatchers. This has always been one of my favorite things about ringbilled gulls. Their flycatching talents seem so out of place in the gull world. A pair of northern rough-winged swallows shows up. They and some tree swallows who join them swoop down on the flies from above. Three eastern kingbirds hawk the flies in true flycatcher style. The catbirds and grackles should take lessons from them. The catbird has the strangest technique of all. It perches on a piece of driftwood above the wrack and pounces on the flies. It doesn't fly, it jumps on them. I watch it for awhile and conclude it can't possibly be effiicient. Cedar waxwings, song sparrows, some goldfinches, and a lone redwinged blackbird all get into the act. Even a herring gull starts snagging flies in the same style as the Bonaparte's, by thrusting its head forward with beak open. I wonder how many flies it takes to sustain a herring gull. Only the great black backs and the terns seem to ignore this fly feast. Three killdeer arrange themselves in a circle on the slope of the dune and kind of surround the flies. They look more like some kind of singing group on stage than shorebirds feasting. They are making an awful lot of noise. It's all pretty amazing. Birders stream in, not after the flies, but after the little gulls. Apparently the word is out. One of the birders tells me there are in fact four little gulls, not just the two that I've seen. I pick them out pretty quickly and thank the guy. A life bird and there's 4 of 'em! Unit 61 comes by to check on how things are going. I tell him about the little gulls and he's concerned the birders will want the boardwalk at lot 7 opened up so they can get a better view, but the rest of the shift progresses without anybody asking for that. The gulls are likely to move over to Stage Island pool or to Sandy Point when this fly fiesta ends anyway. I may or may not have seen a piping plover just out of clear focusing range of my binoculars.		Todays' Bird Sightings Plum Island yellow warbler 2 great black backed gull 5 herring gull 15 Bonaparte's gull 42 little gull 4 ring billed gull 13 northern rough-winged swallow 2 eastern kingbird 3 tree swallow 5 least tern 2 double crested cormorant 4 song sparrow 2 gray catbird 4 American goldfinch 4 common tern 3 redwinged blackbird 1 killdeer 3 common grackle 3 cedar waxwing 2 Mammals refuge staff & visitors Coast Guard Assets none Today's Reading At the Turn of the Tide by Richard Perry This Year's Reading 2005 Booklist Today's Starting Pitcher Tim Wakefield
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