Sunday evening a week ago I checked my email and saw on my eBird alerts that a Black-headed Gull had been found at McGee Lake near Amarillo by Ari Rice. I was familiar with his name from tiger beetle sightings on iNaturalist. He had found it the day before so I was a little late on the alert. But the locals apparently got the message and were out Sunday and saw the bird. What to do? According the the weather forecast a cold front was due up there so I thought I would wait and see what happens before making the 800 mile trip. Well the front blew through and no one reported the Black-headed Gull for a couple of days so it was assumed the bird had left. Glad I had not chased that one.
But on Friday there it was with the Ring-bills in the same field where it had been originally found. I checked the weather and things looked good for a few days. I decided to stay home and do a few chores and wait for another sighting. Sure enough it was found on Saturday, a week after the oringial sighting, so I took off Sunday morning.
After overnighting in Lubock, I got an early start and was at McGee Lake by 8:45am. I was hoping birders would be there on the bird to make it easy. But I was the only one. What a massive area with hundreds of birds. The lake is well off the road and I saw no gulls through the binocs so I drove on down the road and soon came to an irrigated field. And there was a flock of Ring-billed Gulls. I quickly put up the scope and there was the Black-headed Gull!
The Black-headed Gull was smaller than the nearby Ring-billed Gulls and about the same size as a nearby late migrant Frankin's Gull. A Lesser Black-backed Gull had also been reported but I saw no sign of it. These photos are eavily cropped as the bird was two hundrd yards distant.
I enjoyed watching the Black-headed Gull through the scope. I had previously seen the species in China and the Philippines but this was a first for me in the USA and Texas. The TOS Handbook says there are 27 previous Texas records, mostly from NE Texas but few in recent years.
After a half hour or so the flock took off. I got distant shots showing the white upper forewing with black tip, similar to Bonaparte's Gull. But the underwing has a black patch int the flight feathers. Black-headed Gull (left) is slightly larger than Bonaparte's Gull. Notice how much darker the mantle is ont the Franlin's Gull on the right.
Unfortunately the flock flew off towards the lake and disappeared. Well that was nice. I would have preferred a closer view but I'll take it. Another good bird in the field was this late migrant American Golden-Plover on its way to Argentina.
Most of the visiting birders spend some time in the area scoping the distant lake to add birds to their Randall County list. I like county listing but prefer to work on my local counties and I had better things to do. Ari Rice, the finder of this rare gull, also found some great tiger beetles in nearby Donley and Hale Counties. I finished the afternoon with ten species of tiger beetles. Here's Cicendela formosa, Cicindela tranquebarica and Cicindela scutellaris.
The Black-headed Gull was my 608th species for Texas. Wish I could have gotten that thick-knee.
