Note Iceland and lesser black backed gulls at dusk pier 1 bklyn bridge park.
NYS birds listservs post
Subject: Black-headed x Ring-billed Gull hybrid & more gulls, Brooklyn Bridge Park
From: Doug Gochfeld <fresha2411@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2021 21:20:55 -0500
X-Message-Number: 4
The Brooklyn Bridge Park gull roost is, as usual, providing good
entertainment for all wholehearted and would-be larophiles this winter.
Yesterday evening, among the 3,000 or so Larus gulls roosting at the park,
there was a beautiful, crisply plumaged juvenile Iceland Gull
(Kumlien's-type), as well as a subadult Lesser Black-backed Gull. Despite
their increasing numbers in the region, and their relative local abundance
compared to Iceland Gull, Lesser Black-backed Gull has actually proven to
be the less common of the two at this site through the last few years of
intermittent-to-semi-regular gull roost watching.
Photos of these two individuals here:
Today, it hosted what is undoubtedly the rarest gull that has yet to be
detected at the site. Early in the evening, Jer Thorp and Mike Yuan found
an adult Iceland Gull on the Pier 1 pilings, and then a bit later, as light
was truly failing, they found an adult* Black-headed Gull x Ring-billed
Gull hybrid!* I came over from the marina, where I was looking at
Ring-billed Gulls, and much to my delight we were able to re-find the bird.
It was (and presumably still is) roosting on one of the pilings about
midway between the north and south ends of the pilings.
Photos and video of the bird, taken under poor light conditions, can be
seen here:
Mike Yuan & Jer Thorp's checklists: https://ebird.org/checklist/S99659899
My checklist: https://ebird.org/checklist/S99658765
This site, while sometimes hosting single uncommon gulls for much of a
winter, has lots and lots of turnover from day-to-day, providing a "you
never know what you'll see" feel to each evening's roost watching. This was
evidenced by today's absence of yesterday's Iceland and Lesser Black-backed
Gulls, and the appearance of a new adult Iceland Gull today, as well as a
change in the numbers of Great Black-backed Gulls using the pilings from
the single digits yesterday, to 35-40 this evening, and a reduction in the
Ring-billed Gull count by almost a thousand birds between last night and
tonight.
For those wishing to gull at the site, there are two night roosts: the Pier
1 pilings, which tend to host a much higher percentage of larger gulls
(Herring and Great Black-backed), as well as the marina between Piers 3 &
5, which usually features between 1,500-4,500 Ring-billed Gulls, depending
on date, weather conditions, tides, and surely many other things we do not
yet fully understand.
The gulls begin to arrive en masse right around sunset, with many
continuing to pile in after official sunset. A scope is particularly
helpful once night falls, and the ambient light at the park makes some gull
identification feasible well beyond nightfall.
The park is accessible by public transportation, and very limited metered
parking is available along Furman Street, with more expensive parking
garages also very close to the park. There are more parking options
available in Brooklyn Heights or near Atlantic Avenue, a short walk away
from the park.
Good gulling!
Doug Gochfeld. Brooklyn, NY.
