For the first time this season, I briefly met with a Black Dog representative and then spent some time viewing gulls, etc. Much has changed this year due to the spring and summer flooding of Black Dog Road (BDR). First of all, BDR is no longer open to through traffic. Access from the west (35W) is only to the west outlet. Access from the east is only to the plant entrance. I was stunned to see a new concrete bridge has been built at the site where we have always viewed gulls along the causeway. Also, new cyclone fencing makes it rather difficult to see the birds clearly from this location.
Now, the plant is discharging warm water into the WEST lake at this time due to the east outlet construction. Thus, the east lake is mostly frozen except the area just north of the causeway. The area contained several hundred Canada Geese, Mallards, Common Mergansers and one White Pelican. I estimated 1,200 gulls present, mostly circling overhead and about 300 resting near the observation deck on the west lake. Between 4:15 - 5:00pm., the gulls circled and circled and circled, etc., in that dizzying display they seem to do so well. And not one ever came within 100 ft of the ground. Most frustrating, to say the least. With one exception, I could ID only Herring Gulls with certainty, but Thayer's could have easily been missed. I saw only one immature Iceland/Thayer's type but couldn't get a positive ID. I will be in South Dakota surveying pheasants Wed-Sun, but will post the next viewing opportunity that arises. Jim Mattsson Eagan ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
