Showing posts with label Lesser Black-backed Gull. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lesser Black-backed Gull. Show all posts
Saturday, April 11, 2026
Saturday, December 20, 2025
Saturday, February 15, 2025
Saturday, September 14, 2024
Sunday, December 3, 2023
Saturday, October 30, 2021
Sunday, March 15, 2020
Sunday, January 27, 2019
Monday, January 21, 2019
Birds of Boomer For December 2018
Red-shouldered Hawk
Juvenile Herring Gulls
Male Hooded Merganser
Juvenile Herring Gull (Rear)
Red-shouldered Hawk
Common Merganser
Glaucous Gull ?
Lesser Black-backed Gull
Carolina Chickadee
Green-winged Teal
Bewick's Wren
Common Merganser
Juvenile Herring Gulls
Common Merganser
12-05 - 12-16-18
Most of December was a very mild month, with very few birds of interest at Boomer Lake.
We had more Herring Gulls than usual, one or two in a couple of hundred Ring-billed Gulls was normal, but we have seen double, sometimes triple those numbers this winter.
The Lesser Black-backed Gull has visited several times, along with a Glaucous Gull that came in once or twice.
Common Mergansers were all over the state more than usual, more than the normal Red-breasted Merganser.
This irruptive year also brought Purple Finches, as well as Red-breasted Nuthatches to mostly the northwest corner of Boomer Lake several times.
Hungry hawks have also been here, but not nearly the numbers that we saw last year--yet. Winter has only been here for a month.
Ducks were very rare in December, too, but there will be a few changes with occasional cooler mornings in January.
Sunday, January 20, 2019
Sunday, December 23, 2018
Sunday, December 16, 2018
Sunday, December 9, 2018
Saturday, September 15, 2018
Oklahoma Vagrants: Lesser Black-backed Gull
This rare but increasing winter resident from Europe tends to come to Oklahoma on practically a yearly basis. First noticed in 2008 at Boomer Lake Park in Stillwater, this gull comes to Oklahoma frequently in winter, as well as other parts of the state, including Lake Hefner, Lake Yahola, Keystone Dam, and other areas including the Panhandle. It usually mixes in among the Ring-billed and Herring Gulls, usually noted for its larger size, smudged dark spot around the eye, and pale yellow juvenile legs.
They are usually found all over the Atlantic coast in winter, then gradually lessen as they get to inland areas of the US. It looks similar to the Herring Gull, but is a little smaller and the bill shape also helps to give away its identity.
Lesser Black-backed Gull
Boomer Lake Park, 2016
It is suspected that these birds come from Greenland or Iceland, where the latter has had older colonies. As of 2007, two different birds paired with two Herring Gulls to become nesting birds in the States, which was in Maine and Alaska. It first arrived in the US in 1934.
The call is a deeper laugh than the Herring Gull. which also helps to draw attention to it. Young birds have scaly dark brown feathers with black primaries, a neat pattern on the wings, and takes four years to mature. They are also omnivores, like most other gulls, and will join other species at a local dump, or eat invertebrates and fish at bodies of water. They are also kleptoparasites.
Saturday, January 7, 2017
Winter Birds Bring Good Fortune to Boomer Lake
American Goldfinch
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Herring Gull
Dark-eyed Junco (slate colored)
American Robin
Female Downy Woodpecker
Northern Mockingbird
Lesser Black-backed Gull
Ditto, Surrounded by Ring-billed Gulls
American Kestrel at Magruder Plots, OSU
Warbling Vireo Nest
Adult (RIGHT) and Juvenile (LEFT)
Herring Gulls in Rear
12-28-16 through 01-01-17
Temperatures during this period of time were relatively warm for this time of year, unlike what
had just rudely dominated our early mornings.
There were standard birds in our midst, like the American Goldfinch, Dark-eyed Juncos, the
Carolina Chickadee and Wrens, Bewick's Wren, Song Sparrows, and other winter sparrows.
As luck had it, there were other gulls among the mix at Boomer Lake, like the more common Herring Gull, adults having a red spot on the lower bill, and are larger than the yellow-legged Ring-billed Gulls, which really do have a black ring around the front of the bill.
A European gull that is getting to be more common in the area, was willing to be photographed, the Lesser Black-backed Gull.
While a friend and I went to Magruder experimental wheat fields at OSU, we had high hopes to see
a couple of different longspurs, but there were none. There were plenty of Eastern and Western Meadowlarks on New Year's Day, as well as Eastern Bluebirds, and a gorgeous male American Kestrel.
This is the time of year for al the woodpeckers to make nest cavities, choose a mate, and think about
laying eggs. A couple of representatives are shown here, the Downy and Red-bellied Woodpeckers.
There are several yellow-shafted Northern Flickers, including the rarer Red-shafted. We had a female last year and she has returned to us. I don't believe any of her young from last year were red-shafted, but just because I didn't see any, doesn't mean that there were none elsewhere.
Even though the Brown Pelican caught a southern tailwind after two weeks of reigning over Boomer Lake, all good things do come to an end. A Brown Pelican is a coastal bird used to salt water fish and warmer temperatures, so it was a rare fluke, but not totally out of the question during the tail end of an El Nino year.
We'll continue to seek out more uncommon birds this winter, and chances are good that more will be visiting with us.
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