Or so I thought. I went to Clinch Park Sunday afternoon to see if anything was happening. The place was fairly empty except for a few kids enjoying the playground and some folks walking dogs on the trail.
I spied this seagull and decided to take its picture. It was a regular run-of-the-mill seagull. The kind that begs from you at the beach and every park bench in the city.
It turned towards me and I noticed its beautiful, pale eye. I'd not paid much attention to this bird before. Its bill had a black ring near the tip too.
Besides the begging qualities of gulls, I'd seen them soaring on the thermals above the water at the beach. They've provided a great way for me to learn how to take pictures of birds in flight, or BIF as it's know in photography parlance.
As I moved on, I saw another bird posing on a post. I thought it was a gull, but it was sure different-looking than the first. I couldn't help myself from going straight to my bird app. And I was shocked! There are 27 kinds of seagulls in North America.
And of the 27, only two are year-round natives to our area. The first gull was clearly a Ring-billed Gull. The other native gull is a Herring Gull, which has a similar appearance to the Ring-billed Gull, except for a red spot on its bill. The gull above didn't have the markings of either of those gulls. But as I dug deeper into the app, I learned that this gull was a juvenile of one of the two local species.
I guess I learned a couple things from my photo-op with the gulls. A gull isn't just a gull. There are a lot more kinds than I originally had thought.
I also learned, but mostly saw, that the Clinch Park Marina gulls are pretty well-fed. Must be stocking up for the winter.
Beautiful pics and interesting write-up, Karen! I knew there were several kinds of seagulls thanks to Flickr, but didn't know there were 27 different kinds!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Jan. They were fun critters to watch.
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