A Glaucous Gull and More Signs of Spring

Things seem to be changing in the valley. Some of the water that was frozen over a week or two ago is now open. There seem to be many more gulls and Canada Geese around (no Cackling Geese that I could find, and I've been looking). In the past two months I've been seeing mostly Ring-billed Gulls with a few California Gulls mixed in and maybe a Herring Gull if I'm lucky. Today the Ring-billed Gulls and California Gulls were in about even numbers, but I'd estimate I saw about five times as many total gulls today than any other day in the last two months. Herring Gulls also seem to have increased not just in numbers but also in proportion to the rest. I saw at least ten, maybe twenty today. The biggest find of the day was an immature Glaucous Gull in Cutler Marsh, a first for the year and a find almost as rare as the Mew Gull I found a few weeks ago. The Glaucous Gull was seen at the landfill earlier this week by Keith Archibald, according to rumor, but was not reported online; I don't know why. You can see the Glaucous Gull on the right in the photo above, next to a Ring-billed Gull (left) and a Herring Gull (middle) for comparison. Other highlights in the last two days included a Short-eared Owl at Cutler Marsh last night, a Barn Owl at the Logan Airport, and a flock of about five American Tree Sparrows in Benson today. I also saw courtship displays by Common Goldeneyes and Ring-necked Ducks today. Spring must be on the way! Right?

Day One - Audubon 200 Club Kickoff

Every year, the Bridgerland Audubon Society leads a field trip on January 1st so that people who are trying for the 200 Club can get a good start on the first day of the year. Today I joined that trip and we found some great birds!

I couldn't sleep at all last night so at about 5:30AM I finally gave up and decided to start my birding for the year. I tried broadcasting owl calls in Green Canyon and Logan Canyon, but I didn't get any responses. On my way back to meet for the field trip, I stopped by the Logan Cemetery, where I found several bird species including a Brown Creeper.

The highlights for the Audubon field trip fell into two categories: boreal migrants that only occur in the county during the winter and birds that are more or less common in other times of the year, but which do not usually occur here in the winter. The winter migrants we saw included Bohemian Waxwings, American Tree Sparrows, Merlins, and Barrow's Goldeneye. Most of the birds that usually don't overwinter here were first located on the Christmas Bird Count a couple weeks ago, and included a Great Egret and a Greater Yellowlegs.

Notable misses included a White-throated Sparrow that Craig Fosdick and I could not relocate and a Short-billed Dowitcher that was seen on the CBC and earlier this morning, but which I could not find in my two visits to the area. In total, I ended up with 60 species for my list, a great start at 30% of the goal in a single day! But of course, the more species I've seen, the more difficult it will be to add new ones to the list. . . .