I also think my new found hobby got the better of me today... I posted on OntBirds (a birding list where you can post finds of uncommon or seasonally unusual birds) that I had sighted, what I thought was, an uncommon bird - turns out not. One person pointed out to me already that it's not really rare in this area, so, oops! ;) I had thought I had seen on the blog of another popular birder in the area that it was. I checked back and I had misread it. Another kind birder on the list pointed out that I had likely identified the bird correctly as a greater black-backed gull, but that it wasn't male and female but likely one adult and the other in "one of the first to third year plumages". (Thanks Bob!)
Here are the photos anyways. Amongst other ducks in the background, these gulls stood out clearly as they are much bigger than what seems to be common Ring-billed gulls we're used to seeing here.
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| Greater Black-backed Gull (adult and 1st to third year) |
The older one seemed to be trying to break something apart, possibly eating something? This was a fully zoomed in shot, and my tripod is getting a missing part made (thanks to my brother who's a machinist!), so it's not the clearest picture.
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| Greater Black-backed Gull eating something? |
Some interesting facts I found from reading around on the net: Greater Black-backed Gulls are less like the
