Ring-billed Gulls at Maumee Bay State Park

Ring-billed Gulls ruled the roost at Maumee Bay State Park Lodge while we were there the first week in November. Other gulls and terns were present too, such as large numbers of Bonaparte's Gulls, Herring Gulls, and few Caspian and Common Terns, but Ring-billed Gulls were everywhere.  The handsome birds had become habituated to humans and almost seemed to pose for the camera...

Ring-billed Gull at Maumee Bay State Park in Toledo, Ohio (adult, non-breeding)

The pale yellow eye and the complete ring around the bill are great field marks to look for when identifying Ring-billed Gulls.

From a distance, a Ring-billed Gull might look bland, but their pale yellow eyes rimmed in black are striking. During breeding season, the orbital ring is red.

The tips of the primaries on the wings are black...another field mark to look for.

It's easy to see the black-tipped primaries in flight. 

First and second-year Ring-billed Gulls do not look like adult Ring-bills. Click here for an article with photos by Cornell on how to identify young Ring-billed Gulls. How long can Ring-billed Gulls live? According to John Eastman in his book Birds of Field and Shore, if Ring-billed Gulls live beyond their second year, they have a good chance of making it 20 years or more (Eastman, pg 89)!

Bonaparte's Gulls at Cowan Lake

Yesterday, Matty and I drove up to Cowan Lake. It was warm and gorgeous, and we wanted to enjoy the last of Indian Summer before the expected cold front sweeps in bringing rain and possibly snow...

Painting 199. Bonaparte's Gull at Cowan Lake, Field Sketch 2

(watercolor)

A small flock of Ring-billed Gulls and Bonaparte's Gulls were flying and fishing across the lake when we pulled into the parking lot by the dam. A Common Loon and Pied-billed Grebe were swimming and diving too. We hoped they would come in closer, but they had other ideas. Bonaparte's Gulls are so polite and refined...and cute! I loved watching them fish. This was the first time Matty and I had ever driven up to Cowan Lake, and we're definitely going back...

Painting 198. Bonaparte's Gull at Cowan Lake, Field Sketch 1

(watercolor)

November is a good time to see Bonaparte's Gulls in our area. They are migrating through and will spend some time at the larger lakes. Since they are not scavengers like other gulls, you usually get to see them doing a lot of fishing.

Yikes! What kind of photo is this? It's bad, but you can still pick out the identifying field marks for a Bonaparte's Gull in non-breeding plumage—the black spot behind its eye and the cute, cute, red-orange legs!

...same for this photo....bad, but the bird is so cute, and I wanted to show how easily it is to see the spot behind the eye. We were at the dam and the birds were fishing far across on the other side of the Cowan Lake. Good thing I had my paints to capture the moment, because the camera wasn't up to it!

In addition to the gulls, we saw lots of other birds, including a very sweet mixed flock of Brown Creepers, White-breatsed Nuthatches, Tufted Titmice, and Carolina Chickadees. We were sitting on a ridge on the Lotus Cove nature trail looking out on the large American Lotus colony (now withered and brown) when the flock descended. The Brown Creepers were first, their tiny peeps and musical chatter caught our attention, and we watched as they went from tree to tree, starting low and spiraling up through the branches.

Red-breasted Mergansers and gulls--and a huge splashfest on Lake Erie...

...continued from yesterday's Red-breasted Merganser post.

Later in the morning we drove a little further west on Lake Erie to try another section of the lake. Dave had heard all three scoters had been sighted, and we were hoping for a glimpse. We didn't see the scoters, but we did see something amazing to me--thousands of gulls (mostly Herring and Ring-billed and even a few Great Black-backed Gulls too) were swarming around a huge raft of Red-breasted Mergansers. I'm sure this is a common sight for Lake Erie dwellers, but it was a first for me.

A group of Red-breasted Mergansers floating on the water surrounded by endless numbers of gulls.

Red-breasted Mergansers are fish-eating diving ducks, and this is the reason the gulls swarm around them. As a merganser surfaces with a fish in his bill, a gull is often there to help himself to the merganser's dinner. Mergansers are often called "sawbills" because their bills are serrated and resemble a saw. These sharp little edges help the merganser hold onto slippery fish, but even the serration is no match for a hungry Herring or Ring-billed Gull who can pluck the fish right out of the merganser's bill--pesky little fish thieves!

Icicles forming along the rocks and hanging from branches as the waves crashed up against the shore.

You would never know how cold it was in this photo...looks like a warm, summer day at the beach...

The Herring and Ring-billed Gulls were relentless in their thieving ways...

....of course, not all the gulls were stealing fish. Those closest to me and farthest from the mergansers were diving head first into the water to catch their own dinners. Here a group of juvenile Herring Gulls were trying their luck at fishing...