Sight Gulls Jordan

Living in a state with a significant coastline like North Carolina, any birder with a mind towards improving their skills is going to have to learn to tackle gulls sooner rather than later. The Larid list on the official North Carolina state list is long and varied, with a record of nearly every single species regularly found in North America, and a few not so regular. But, as you may expect, that’s mostly a coastal birder’s quandary. Those of us here in the Piedmont, however, in the central part of the state, don’t have to worry so much about diversity. Nearly everywhere we go you’ll see this…

That’s what I found Sunday morning at Jordan Lake. Ring a ding ding bills. Lots of ‘em. That’s not to say that unusual gulls aren’t found here. It’s well-worth a thorough scan of the water to look for Little or Glaucous or Black-headed Gulls, all of which have turned up here. But even the usual scan of the loafing gull flocks for something different turns up something like this…

Aha! A juvenile Herring Gull. Success. That’s typically about the most exciting thing you can expect. This day was no different.

Out on the open water were loads of Bonaparte’s Gulls, more than I’ve seen in a long time. I suspect there are many birds from further south making the slow move north and supplementing our winter resident populations.

I love Bonies, and as there were a few close to the shoreline I decided to try and get some photos of the birds hovering and diving over the water. This was far easier said than done. Holding up a camera to the eyepiece of a scope works with sedentary birds, but with those moving it made for many shots of blurry and half out of frame birds. The best shot is below. And it that’s the best, imagine the folder of terrible shots that preceded it.

Sadly, but not unexpectedly, those three species were the only ones around Jordan Lake on this typical late winter morning.

Luckily for me, though, that the parking lot at the access point was full of birds too, passively photogenic ones too, like this Eastern Bluebird that still made me chase it from tree to tree before sitting in a spot on which I could focus. Even this time, the bird perched too high and the sun was not quite right for the nice photo I’d imagined, which was frustrating considering the great spots the bird would alight in prior to this instance, many marred only by a wayward branch.

I do have to say, however, even a relatively slow day birding is made a bit more exciting when the goal becomes trying to take photos of even common birds.

Gulls included.