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Posted by Bryant Roberts on 13:50:11 10/23/05
In Reply to: Franklin's Fest posted by John Boyd
Shortly after John left Mark and I noticed an odd shorebird call and traced it to a bird in flight. It looked to us like a Golden Plover which we confirmed when it landed for a minute about a hundred yards south of us. We didn't have a chance to confirm that it was an American Golden Plover and it was last flying out of site towards the southeast.
: Bryant Roberts, Mark Berney, and I saw at least 5 Franklin's Gulls today in the construction area where they were seen yesterday. 4 were adult/second winter, 1 was first-winter. I found this hard to believe and spent some time scoping them to make sure. Not all of the gulls were present, so there may be even more around! This is quite surprising to me as I have scanned many Laughing Gulls in S Florida before, finding no Franklin's. We speculated that they may have been moved from their normal wintering grounds by Katrina or Rita.
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: Bryant also saw the Black-headed Gull this morning, shortly before Mark and I arrived. (Paul, Juan, and I saw it yesterday afternoon.)
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: I did a count yesterday of LBB gulls, finding 20 of them. The flock subsquently grew, so there are probably more. Just a few years ago, this would have been considered a fantastic number anywhere in the US.
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