Occoquan Bay NWR, VA, 2/18/2023

[DaBirb]

Are there any other gulls besides ring billed? Thanks!

[IKLland]

Unidentifiable 

[Charlie Spencer]

Based solely on this photo, I wouldn't even say there were Ring-billeds.

[Birds are cool]

Unidentifiable.

[Peromyscus]

There's a young Herring Gull (1st winter I think) between and in front of the third and fourth fence posts to the right of the Turkey Vulture.

[Charlie Spencer]

49 minutes ago, Peromyscus said:

There's a young Herring Gull (1st winter I think) between and in front of the third and fourth fence posts to the right of the Turkey Vulture.

How are you eliminating other gull species?

[Jerry Friedman]

1 hour ago, DaBirb said:

Are there any other gulls besides ring billed?

...

Having done most of my birding in Ohio and New Mexico, I've often pondered that question.

Edited March 6 by Jerry Friedman

[chipperatl]

2 hours ago, Peromyscus said:

There's a young Herring Gull (1st winter I think) between and in front of the third and fourth fence posts to the right of the Turkey Vulture.

I see at least 4, 3 juvenile and one or two adults.  Just based on size and probability.  

[Peromyscus]

2 hours ago, Charlie Spencer said:

How are you eliminating other gull species?

I didn't see any other species in the photo when I enlarged it on my laptop. I thought there might be at least two other Herrings, which I were less sure about than the one I wrote about.

Edited March 7 by Peromyscus

[Charlie Spencer]

On 3/6/2023 at 9:02 PM, Peromyscus said:

I didn't see any other species in the photo when I enlarged it on my laptop. I thought there might be at least two other Herrings, which I were less sure about than the one I wrote about.

I'm sorry, I meant, "How did you decide the bird was a Herring and not something else?"

[Peromyscus]

2 hours ago, Charlie Spencer said:

I'm sorry, I meant, "How did you decide the bird was a Herring and not something else?"

It was a largely brown gull, slightly larger than Ring-billed, in a place where Lesser Black-back is pretty rare. Lesser Black-back would have looked a little smaller than this Herring.

There's a birdwalk at that refuge on Sunday. If we see any gulls other than Ring-billed or Herring, I'll report back.

[Peromyscus]

22 minutes ago, Peromyscus said:

It was a largely brown gull, slightly larger than Ring-billed, in a place where Lesser Black-back is pretty rare. Lesser Black-back would have looked a little smaller than this Herring.

There's a birdwalk at that refuge on Sunday. If we see any gulls other than Ring-billed or Herring, I'll report back.

*somewhat larger than Ring-billed

Also, it was too dark for immature Iceland or Glaucous Gull. Great Black-backed would have been larger still, and not largely brown.

[DaBirb]

Wait. There’s a turkey vulture in this photo?

[DaBirb]

Here are some cropped photos:

[DaBirb]

And some more:

[IKLland]

53 minutes ago, DaBirb said:

And some more:

Now I’m confident saying that there’s definitely Ring-Buller Gulls in there… I’m just not comfortable saying that all of them are ring-billed. 

[IKLland]

56 minutes ago, DaBirb said:

Wait. There’s a turkey vulture in this photo?

Yes. 

[Quiscalus quiscula]

9 minutes ago, IKLland said:

Now I’m confident saying that there’s definitely Ring-Buller Gulls in there… I’m just not comfortable saying that all of them are ring-billed. 

The darker bird on the right I think is a Herring.

[IKLland]

33 minutes ago, Quiscalus quiscula said:

The darker bird on the right I think is a Herring.

I’m not certain from that angle. 

[Peromyscus]

37 minutes ago, IKLland said:

I’m not certain from that angle. 

The largely brown gull that is a little to the right of the Turkey Vulture is larger than the Ring-billed Gull to its left. They are between the the third and fourth posts, and in front of the third post, respectively, to the right of the vulture.

[IKLland]

2 minutes ago, Peromyscus said:

The largely brown gull that is a little to the right of the Turkey Vulture is larger than the Ring-billed Gull to its left. They are between the the third and fourth posts, and in front of the third post, respectively, to the right of the vulture.

Yeah, that’s definitely a Herring. I thought @Quiscalus quisculawas talking about a different bird. 

[Peromyscus]

On 3/8/2023 at 7:35 AM, Peromyscus said:

There's a birdwalk at that refuge on Sunday. If we see any gulls other than Ring-billed or Herring, I'll report back.

We saw 30 Ring-billed Gulls and 1 or 2 Herring Gulls. No other gulls, and we also didn't see the early Forster's Tern reported yesterday. The Herrings and some of the Ring-bills were flyovers, while the rest of the gulls were roughly where DaBirb's photo was taken. The tide was higher than in the photo, so we couldn't see any exposed mud.