I headed down to Dunkirk Harbor in Chautauqua Co. this afternoon and the highlight alone was the sheer number of large gulls. I counted 1345 Great Black-backed Gulls between the inner harbor and the area just outside near Pt. Gratiot--this is apparently the 2nd highest inland maxima in the state with the high being 2500 at the Moses-Saunders Dam along the St. Lawrence River on 21 November 1989. There were at least twice as many Herring Gulls present along with 300 Ring-bills, 3 GLAUCOUS (1st, 2nd, and 3rd-basic), a nice 2nd-basic NELSON'S (Herring x Glaucous), and what appeared to be a backcross-type ad. HERRING x L. BLACK-BACKED GULL (Herring-like, but showing apparent LBB Gull influence). About 80% of the GBB Gulls were resting on ice inside the harbor, while the rest (plus most of the Herring Gulls) were feeding/resting at the beach on the west side of the NRG power plant viewable from Point Drive N. At first I wasn't sure what was attracting all the gulls to the heavily iced-in area at the north end of the beach, and upon walking closer I found hundreds of gulls piled into two ice-free ditches that were filled with loads of dead fish. Even more amazing was that as I walked closer, they were so heavily involved in feeding, calling, and displaying that they didn't even notice my presence until I was nearly 15 yards away from the closest birds! I settled down into a spot and eventually more just started piling in--it was definitely the closest experience I've had in WNY to "Canadian dump gulling." Photos will eventually be posted here: _http://picasaweb.google.com/jmpawli88_ (http://picasaweb.google.com/jmpawli88)
On another note, the long-staying American Avocet was not present at the warm-water outflow near the west end of the harbor, and optimistically speaking it moved on to better environs. A few other highlights included: 40+ Double-crested Cormorants 5 Great Blue Herons 2 Ruddy Ducks 2 Ring-necked Ducks Lesser Scaup Redhead Canvasback 4 Pied-billed Grebes Song Sparrow on the mud at the warm-water outflow Jim Pawlicki Amherst, NY -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES Archives: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
