Day 346: December 12th- Beacon revisited

Partly sunny, light north winds, low 40s

       I returned to the Beacon waterfront in the hopes of finding the elusive Iceland gull….elusive for me at any rate.  Once again, three of these rare gulls were spotted yesterday in this very area.  But it was not in the cards for me as I spent a couple of hours scanning the Hudson shoreline between Newburgh and Beacon.  Most of the time was at the Beacon side at Water Front Park and Long Dock Park. 

Long Dock Park, Beacon

        It wasn’t that I didn’t find gulls.  I found hundreds of them.  There were three Great black-backs, a couple of Herring gulls and all the rest were Ring-bills.  On the Newburgh side, an American crow came in to join the Ring-bills as if to give me something else to look at.  He cawed away and the tolerant gulls looked on with a modicum of disdain.  You can almost see the sour looks from the second gull to the left.

       In Beacon, it was all about regimen for these birds.  At one site, the rule was “one to a piling” and everyone seemed to be fine with that.

        Along the rail of the walk out to the dock where you can take a boat out to Bannerman’s Island in the summer, the gulls all lined up as if in a chorus line.  Again, no pushing of shoving, just peaceful co-existence.

 

       I finally gave up and headed for home, but only after having a Song sparrow sing me a fine farewell.  Today made it two strikes, so I’ll definitely have to return to see if I can avoid the strike-out.  After all, patience is a virtue as exemplified by today’s Ring-billed gull gatherings.