If you want to practice gull identification, you need to go to where their are large numbers of gulls. The beach is good, but the dump, or landfill, is even better (if you can stand the smell).
Posted by David McRee at BlogTheBeach.com
After our class on gull I.D. at the Space Coast Birding & Wildlife Festival we headed over to the Brevard County Landfill and rode a bus to the top of “Mount Brevard,” as it was called by Erin from Brevard’s Solid Waste facility who escorted us to the top of the 185 foot high landfill. The elevation provided us with a great view of the surrounding area.
Participants in the 13th Annual Space Coast Birding & Wildlife Festival train their binoculars and spotting scopes on a hungry flock of gulls.
There were thousands of gulls flying every which way, but Alvaro Jaramillo picked out the interesting species easily and helped us understand how he does it. I saw, for the first time, a Lesser Black-backed gull. It’s a large gull, like a Herring, but with a darker grey back, yellow legs, and a prominent red spot on the lower bill. I’m rather proud of myself for being able to pick it out of a sea of Ring-billed gulls, Laughing gulls, and Herring gulls.
It takes a studied eye and patience to find the uncommon species.
While looking at this sea of feathers, I was reminded of the Sesame Street song that went like this:
“One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just isn’t the same…”
That’s what we were looking for. The gulls that were different.
I found one. It was too far away for my camera to get a good photo of.
Watching gulls at the landfill, not your everyday pastime, but it works for these folks.
FTC Disclosure of Material Connections: I receive compensation from the Space Coast Birding & Wildlife Festival for writing about the 2010 Festival. I also receive a great deal of personal satisfaction from writing about this wonderful event.
