It's been fun watching how eBird alerts change along with the seasons (this is my first fall with email alerts enabled). One shorebird that's been on my target list for a while is Black Turnstone. I've recently seen more regular reports of them on the coast now that fall has arrived... fast forward a few days and there I was, at the coast. Upon arriving, I went down toward the water to try to find these birds. The sun was low in the sky, and very bright. It was a clear, relatively cool day. In the harsh light it was tough to see, but I did see little black birds with white bellies walking on the rocks and wading through shallow water. There they were! I heard them calling — they sounded a bit like Belted Kingfishers. I spent a few minutes trying to find and re-find the two of them I saw, then about 15 of them appeared from among the rocks and flew off at once to the south. I walked a bit south trying to see if I could find where the flock landed, but I only got a couple brief distant glimpses of another one or two. It was cool and lucky to see the lifer so quickly upon arriving!

I had also seen a few reports of Herring and Iceland gulls closer to home. I familiarized myself with the likely gulls I'd see, and I few days later I went out to try to spot them. After a half mile walk I found the spot where the gulls were congregating. There were a good number (>150) of gulls sitting on rocks out in the middle of the river. I didn't want to spook them, so I didn't even try to get that close. And again, like a couple days ago, I was looking into the harsh sunlight. I took lots of photos, including a set of pano photos (which I like to do when there's a zillion stationary birds) to review later for counting purposes. Then I watched the gulls for a while with my binoculars and tried to pick out some candidate Herring Gulls to photograph. I saw a number of them that looked like good candidates, and took a few hundred photos. Upon reviewing the photos later, some of the gulls I thought might have been Herring Gulls were smaller with yellow legs — Ring-billed Gulls. I knew I was looking at some Ring-billed's but there were more than I realized out in the field. Other candidate gulls look like actual Herring Gulls after closely reviewing photos, a new lifer! They are as large as the Glaucous-winged Gulls, but have black wingtips. Like the Glaucous-winged Gulls that were there, the Herring Gulls have a patterned gray+white head, and pink legs. To distinguish from the Glaucous-winged, they have a lighter eye and less bulbous bill. That's my understanding anyway. Gulls are tricky, and I feel like now, after reviewing these birds closely, I can (maybe should?) go back out to find and photograph them again.

These photos are © 2023 Phil Thompson, all rights reserved.

My "birds in review" collages can be found here.