Sunday, April 10, 2016

Heermann's Gull at Texas City Dike, 3/30/16

I'm a little behind on my blog entries so here goes.  A first winter Heermann's Gull was found on March 28 at the Bolivar flats and I didn't worry too much about chasing it as these birds have a habit of not hanging around.  But it was found again the next day on the Texas City Dike near a fish cleaning station.  I figured that might be enough to make it stay a spell so I blasted off at 2AM on March 30 and arrived at the spot at about 8:30 and there was the bird.  I didn't even have to get out of the car.  This is the fourth record for this species in Texas.



At the same spot was a great first winter Glaucous Gull.


I spent a couple of hours on the dike trying to do a gull big day, but the only others I could find were the usual Laughing, Ring-billed, Herring and Bonaparte's Gulls.  But what a great place to bird!  With nothing else unusual up there I just turned around and headed for home.  It turned out to be a 750 mile day but well worth it.

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