[CT Birds] Gull Stuff 9

[Dennis Varza]

Gull Stuff 9

I planned on this being the last one for the season. But when I  
thought it was safe to ignore gulls again Clay Taylor reported a  
remarkable 6 Lesser Black-backed Gulls on 28  Apr 2008 at Madison,  
Hammonasset St. Pk. From the descriptions they seem to all be 3rd.  
winter birds molting into 4th summer.

Below is a summary of the small gulls. There was one Sabine’s Gull  
reported in autumn but I will leave that and the Jaegers to the Rare  
Records Committee

Dennis Varza
Fairfield

Little Gull
All birds were adults
2008	3	15	1	Fairfield Southport Beach	Dennis Varza
2008	3	17	1	Milford, end of Platt St, at 2:30	Greg Hanisek
2008	3	18	1	Milford, Woodmont Beach	Meredith Sampson w/ Penny Solum

Black-headed Gull
I took a look at some photos I took at Stamford, Holly Pond on 20  
March of the Bonaparte’s Gulls in general I found 2 and maybe 3 (the  
bird had its head turned) additional Black-headed Gulls. So, at the  
same time there was one bird with a neraly complete black head and  
two others with a winter plumaged head. All observations were of  
adult birds

2008	3	8	1	Fairfield Southport Beach	Frank Mantlik
2008	3	17	1	Milford, end of Platt St, at 2:30	Greg Hanisek
2008	3	20-21	3	Stamford, Holly Pond	Dennis Varza
2008	3	22	1	Fairfield, Southport Beach	Neil Currie and Tom Hook
2008	3	25	1	Stamford, Holly Pond	Dennis Varza
2008	3	30	1	Fairfield, Southport Beach	Jim Hunter

Laughing Gull
This is a “Summer Gull” and mostly gone by December. these are the  
last records.

2007	11	17	9	Bridgeport, Seaside Pk.	Dennis Varza
2007	11	25	1	Madison, Hammonasset St. Pk	Tim Antanaitis
2007	12	3	1	Fairfield, Southport Beach	Dennis Varza
2007	12	3	1	Madison, Hammonasset St. Pk	Ed Hagen et al
2008	3	16	1	Westport, Sherwood Is. St. Pk.	Frank Gallo

Bonaparte’s Gull
There were 74 observations from 17 towns since 1 Sept. 2007. There  
were 4 inland records.  The peak of the spring migration occurred in  
late March. The largest flock was 1000 gulls and they were feeding  
off shore not roosting. It wasn't until mid April that immature  
started making up a significant portion of the flock.

2007	10	12	1	Farmington, Batterson Pd.	Paul Cianfaglione
2007	10	27	1	Farmington, Batterson Pd.	Paul Cianfaglione
2007	11	5	1	Litchfield, Bantam Lake	David Rosgen
2008	04	17	1	Salisbury, Twin Lakes 	Paul Carrier
2008	04	29	1	Westport, Compo Beach	Dennis Varza

Month     	#	Max	    Avg.
September	4	3	1-3 	birds at Sandy Pt. 19 to 29
October  	8	7	2.85
November	6	12	5.5
December	11	100	19.81
January  	4	54	22.5
February	3	91	31
March 1-15	15	300	70.2
March 16-31	13	1000	251.8
Arpil 1-15	8	260	97
April 15-31	2	1	1	

Number of sightings in each town
New London	1
Waterford	2
Old Saybrook	1
Madison 	6
New Haven	1
West Haven	3	
Milford    	7
Stratford 	4
Bridgeport	7
Fairfield   	13
Westport	3
Norwalk  	1
Stamford	13
Greenwich	1