With strong west winds Betsy and I headed for the Peace Bridge this morning and were pleasantly surprised by how much we saw. There were several thousand Bonaparte's Gulls, 4 LITTLE GULLS, many dark-winged scoters of both species, a few White-winged Scoters and Goldeneye, lots of Long-tailed Ducks, Scaup, and Bufflehead. Also 7 late CHIMNEY SWIFTS, 2 Tree Swallows, 2 RED-NECKED GREBES, and a few Horned Grebes and Common Loons, including one loon that wailed only 25 yards away from us! The biggest group of Bonaparte's Gulls were off of a marina on the NY side about 1/2 mile north of the International RR Bridge. Among them were an imm. PEREGRINE FALCON and 5 COMMON TERNS. Niagara Falls was even more impressive with Bonies, with thousands both above and especially below the falls. We had 1 LITTLE GULL and a MERLIN above the falls and three more LITTLE GULLS below. Also below the falls were a first-winter FRANKLIN'S GULL and a first-winter BLACK-LEGGED KITTIWAKE, as well as a couple of COMMON TERNS, an adult PEREGRINE FALCON, AND 3 LESSER BLACK-BACKED GULLS. Another Lesser was above the falls as were 200+ Rough-winged and 2 Tree Swallows. After leaving Betsy looking into the gorge below the falls while I walked back to get the car, she had a brief scope view of a small gull that appeared dark on the underwings but paler than most Little Gulls and what appeared to be a wedge-shaped tail. She also thought the head did not show a cap. Unfortunately, she lost it amongst the dense flocks of Bonies and could not relocate it in the 15 minutes before I picked her up. It may have been just a subadult Little Gull, especially considering that it would be very early for a Ross's. Nevertheless, if you are birding in the area, you may want to keep it in mind. With the Sabine's Gull that Peter Yoerg had on Lake Erie at Athol Springs, there were nine species of gulls found in the region today - an early date for that many. I estimate that there were nearly 20,000 Bonies in Fort Erie/Buffalo and Niagara Falls combined, pretty remarkable for the date. Good birding! Willie ---------- Willie D'Anna Betsy Potter Wilson, NY dannapotter@wzrd.com