There is a large winter gull roost on Croton Falls Reservoir in Putnam County. The roost seems to predominantly consist of Ring-billed Gulls, although there are still dozens of Herrings. I have seen anywhere from 700 to over 2,000 total individual gulls going in there to roost for the night in the past in December and January. I'm not sure what the state of fresh water is in the area, but Croton Falls is, in my experience, the last piece of freshwater in that immediate area to freeze over (I have yet to see it completely frozen during the Christmas Counts or Waterfowl Counts we've done there over the past few years, despite there being a couple of years when everything else was frozen).
This is about 19 miles away from where the Slaty-backed Gull was found by Curt McDermott. If there aren't a lot of big gulls roosting there it might not be the best bet for re-finding this individual, but it would certainly warrant checking for people in the area if the SBGU continues to be MIA from Beacon. A good, though distant, viewing spot is a pull-off here: 41.371243,-73.661585 The area immediately around the reservoir and the banks are all restricted access, so that pull-off seems to be the best bet. You would look just about due west from there. Good Birding -Doug Gochfeld. Brooklyn, NY. -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
