At about 3pm today (thursday) I observed a first year Lesser Black-backed Gull on the south west corner of Lake Mille Lacs just a little ways south east of the casino. The gull was at rest with a flock of about 50 Ring-billed Gulls. ID had to wait until I got home to look at Harrison's Seabirds. I was surprised at the ID, as there are virtually no summer records of this gull in the summer in Minnesota.
Description: The gull was larger than the largest Ring-billed Gulls, yet not as large as I would expect for a Herring Gull. Back and wings were checkered brown, not as fine as with Thayer's. Wing tips and tail were brown. Rest of bird was whitish, except for a dark spot around eye and darkish line extending back from eye. there was also a dark smudge on the head behind the eye. Legs were pale pink and bill, which was heavier than the Ring-bills, was all black. Steve Weston on Quiggley Lake in Eagan, MN sweston2 at comcast.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://moumn.org/pipermail/mou-net_moumn.org/attachments/20070629/38990a02/attachment-0001.html
