[CT Birds] Bonaparte's Gulls

[TomdB2 at aol.com]

I just moved here from the Midwest, Chicago specifically.  Out on the  Great 
Lakes, there has been a dramatic decline in Bonaparte's Gulls from when I  was 
a kid.  It used to be there were late fall or even wintering flocks in  the 
thousands in Chicago; now sighting more than one at a time is worth  reporting 
to the Illinois list serve.  Long-tailed Ducks have had similar  declines out 
there--a sighting of a single Long-tailed is notable (perhaps they  didn't 
like the name change?), though at least there are sometimes still good  numbers 
further north  (which led me to speculate that climate change was  keeping them 
from coming all the way done, but others cited data that shows a  serious 
long-term decline in the US population as a whole).
 
Tom de Boor
Branford, CT



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