Flathead County Gulls on Sunday

      Taking advantage of the nice(ish?) weather on Sunday the 27th, and a free morning, I went up to the landfill to indulge in the challenge that is gull identification!

     Many birds were present, almost a thousand, most being Ring-billed Gulls, as usual. I estimated 150 Herring Gulls, 45 California Gulls and found 1 Mew Gull and 1 Thayer's Gull.  I managed to do quite well in the relm of photographing the gulls, and got some pretty good shots!  I looked and looked, for about an hour, but I did not turn up any "white-winged" or "dark-backed" gulls.  I have been working hard on learning 1st and 2nd-cycle Slaty-backed and Lesser black-backed Gulls in hopes that I can use that to positively ID one! It seems most of those species go unnoticed unless they are full adults.

Here are my best photos from Sunday! Enjoy!

adult Ring-billed Gull

adult Herring Gull (Ring-billed in foreground)

adult California Gull

adult Mew Gull

1st-cycle Herring Gull

1st-cycle Herring Gull

2nd-cycle California Gull

     It was a good day at the dump, and I got to exercise my gull-ID.  I plan on going back many times this winter, and hopefully will find something quite odd!  In the meantime, I will continue to learn new aspects of gull ID! It's a lot to learn!

Assembling the Masses

This is a look at Church Slough. Maybe the best spring waterfowl hotspot in the whole county! That is a big area by the way, not like all the small counties in California or something. You can actually fit the WHOLE state of Rhode Island in the Columbia Falls School District.

Wow, getting off topic. Well, I was saying Church Slough is a great hotspot for spring waterfowl. At this point it is still mostly frozen, but when the ice continues to melt.... much more will happen.

I started the day (Saturday the 6th) driving to Dan Casey's house in Somers. We looked over the waterfowl on the north shore of Flathead Lake and right off I got several year birds!

Trumpeter Swan
Red-breasted Merganser
Northern Pintail
Barrow's Goldeneye
Killdeer
Eurasian Wigeon
Lesser Scaup

Suprisingly, there was a large flock of almost 12 Red-breasted Mergansers on the lake! That is actually quite interesting. Almost more so then the Eurasian Wigeon! We get small numbers of them every March, as well as Cackling Geese. My first wave of migrant waterfowl as been spotted!

Next we went to Church Slough, and as mentioned above, was still very icy. There was, however, a variaty of birds to be seen.

Northern Harrier
American Wigeon
Greater Scaup

-made up the yearbirds, but the most interesting to me and Dan was an adult THAYER'S GULL. I have only seen these at the landfill, but this bird was flying around the frozen slough!

My scope looking over the birds at Church Slough

A pair of the many Canada Geese in the area!

This Red-winged Blackbird was at splitpond, on the way to Church Slough

After saying good-day to Dan at Church Slough, I went and wondered up around Creston, and didn't have any luck with Swallows or Bluebirds...can't say I was expecting them though, they are still a few days out.

I did get a shot of this nice male SONG SPARROW singing on territory.

Just a few Canada Geese on a pond off of Montford Road

Next was the county landfill just to see what gulls were in the area.

I got this shot of a COMMON RAVEN siting on the edge of the mud-ridge.

All that was about was MANY many California Gulls, and a handful of Herring Gulls... not even any Ring-billeds!

Updates since Saturday:

March 10th - Besides it being Andrew Guttenberg's birthday, I got another yearbird this morning on my way to school! I got great looks at a female VARIED THRUSH!!!!! What a pretty bird!!!

up-coming: Saturday, the 13th I am co-leading a trip to the Mission Valley! That should be a mega bird-filled trip! Many new and exciting things!

up-coming: Saturday-Sunday, March 27-28 - FREEZOUT LAKE! The huge mass of white geese (Snow and Ross's Geese) will be substantial, and so will the other waterfowl and field birds! Amazing trip! Watch for my post!

So, as of now, I am at 77 for the year - 10 from Saturday and then the Varied Thrush today

Finally!! Some Birding!!

Feb. 13 I did some 'round valley birding in attempts to find some yearbirds I have missed. This time of year is tough, nothing new, and not much here in the first place. Once March arrives, there will be a flush of waterfowl so big it will fill the sloughs and fields full! It looks we are headed that way.......

Remember that ice boat dock shot from last post? This is the same place, in the same position but about a full month later! Ice and water has receded slightly... and more room for waterfowl!


I went down the east side of the Flathead River, wondering south of Creston. About the only thing out there was a bunch of Rough-legged Hawks. That's not too bad though; I got to get some .... interesting shots of them.
My favorite! I love the depth of field it shows between the in-focus tail and the out-of-focus wings!

I crossed the Flathead River at the "Sportsman's Bridge" near Bigfork, and then headed up the "lower valley". Here, I scouted for potential waterfowl hotspots but I think it's still too early to tell. I did, however, get the best Harlan's Hawk shot I have yet to get!!

I like this shot for the look at the tail pattern! No red in this one at all!

Feb 14th: I went to drop my sister off in Whitefish, and was thinking this was large use of gasoline if I didn't do something....so, I went to the landfill!!!! It was about 2pm when I got there, and there was about 200 gulls present. A quick scan revealed a LARGE gull, obviously bigger then a Herring Gull, and its back was whiter, and its wingtips were 100% whiter! An adult GLAUCOUS GULL!!! What a fantastically beautiful bird! Unfortunately, I had left my camera bag at home as when I left I was not thinking of birding. So, the only photos I have are from my cell phones camera through the scope... not that bad considering!

Also at the landfill, was at least on THAYER'S GULL (adult) and a few CALIFORNIA GULLS. These 3 gulls, and BROWN CREEPER on Thursday bring my year, and MT year list to 64. Kinda low for mid-Feb, actually like over 10 less then my last years list at this time.

I am working on doing more birding then I have done for the last month, which was almost zip!

First QUICK test of my new digiscoping setup

Yesterday, I went out to try my new digiscoping setup, but there was NO gulls, NO GULLS at he landfill! I was quite annoyed as the sun came out and was shinning bright! I left and looked for a Harlan's Hawk (Red-tailed Hawk subspecies) and found one, but all the raptors I saw were very skiddish and presented no good photos. Later, at home, I figured out that my memory card that came with the camera is "broken" as in it wont allow you to reviece the photos from it. So, I got a new one, and was ready for gulls for the next day.

Today, in between Christmas shopping, I went to the dump and the sun was shinning and there was GULLS! great! And, as I pulled in, I saw Dan Casey already there and scoping out the gulls. Granted there was not that many birds, or much variety, but there was sure oppertunity for digiscoping. So I got out of my van, and went for my scope and....................where is my scope???? I can't believe I forgot my scope at home! "ha ha um...Dan, may I use your scope to take a few shots?"

Maybe tomorrow everything will aline...

This is the ridge where some of the gulls where roosting, and the next 2 shots are of birds on the top of the ridge.

Not to bad shots of Herring Gulls

See you tomorrow!

Beginning of Winter Birds

Saturday, I went out for another round trip of birding. It felt like a good day from the start, we had crazy weather and snow so somethings had to be moving about.

First, I wandered around Columbia Falls to see if the waxwings/grosbeaks had maybe started to trickle in.... they haven't started yet. I did see many Rock Pigeons.....

Next stop was the county landfill, of course!! The mandatory stop for birding in the winter, you can't bird a day in the valley without stopping there. But the one thing about landfills isn't the smell, it's too darn cold to smell anything. It's that the area keeps changing. They have to keep burying the garbage and to the gull-viewing areas and the gull roosting sites keep changing. Sometimes they work together and they roost in good areas, but like now, they "gull" area isn't quite optimal for viewing form the non-restricted areas. This makes for the inconsistent viewing of the gulls, and a real rarity could slip through. I did get to see some gulls.

There were more Herring Gulls, (above photo) and less California Gulls and still MANY Ring-billed Gulls. Also, had a few Mew Gulls. I am sure this is a first-year Mew, but am not sure.

Ring billed Gull (above)

Common Raven tracks (below)

Young Herring Gull (above)

After viewing the gulls I was about to leave, but this gull caught my eye. Very Mew Gull like, but had a light-ish eye and blue-green legs and bill!! I first thought maybe a Mew x Ring-billed hybrid, but some quick research in "Gulls of the Americas" found that 2nd-cycle nonbreeding plumage Mew Gulls look just like this one. But that doesn't explain the light eye. It wasn't like really light, but a lot more then a normal Mew but still hard to see in my photos....

After my gull fun, I wandered down the west valley (again) and this time came across a nice flock of Bohemian and Cedar Waxwings

I like this shot of the 2 species right near each other. A great education shot on identifying the 2.

Next was the lower valley, just north of Flathead Lake. The clouds over the lake were quite interesting....This is looking south to the lake.

Not much down here, but a number of Rough-legged Hawks. Got some great shots of one perched, then of a second bird as it took off! Enjoy!

Mew Gulls

Flathead Lake, MT

Today, Thanksgiving Eve, I wandered around the valley birding. Remember the Mew Gulls I found the other weekend at the landfill? They are still there, and then some. Dan Casey counted 4 Mew Gulls at a time. Today, right away with out even a hard search, I found 2 Mews. I got close enough that I can phonedigiscope some semi-Internet worthy shots of one of the Mew Gulls.

At the main area, there was hundreds of gulls!! Mostly Ring-billeds as usual, but many Herring and at least 2 adult Thayer's and a few California Gulls. I did not find a Glaucous Gull, but I did find a Herring that REALLY fit the bill for a European Herring Gull! Like identical to one of the birds in "Gulls of the Americas". I could not grab any photos of this bird.

One of the Ring-billed found a huge chunk of misc. biological matter in the garbage, and was trying to scarf it down. I got these shot of his failed attempt. Enjoy!

The Ring-billeds weren't that shy, and some walked closer to me then where they landed.

But then flew!

I wandered down the "west valley", but there was not much to report from here except a few American Pipits on Church Rd.

I went to Foy Lake again to check on the Scoters and there they were. 2 White-winged Scoters! That is pretty cool! Here is a phonedigiscope shot of the female. Also, I had a few Townsend's Solitares and a few Eared Grebes on the lake.

On Foy Lake Road, on my way to Flathead Lake, an AMERICAN THREE-TOED WOODPECKER flew across the road! That is only the second time I have ever seen one. I love those birds.

The sun came out and the water was still on Flathead Lake today. I could see REALLY far out onto the lake with my scope under these conditions. There was a few Common Loons, Red-necked Grebes, and Horned Grebes. Along on of the roads over looking Somers Bay I had a small flock of Bohemian Waxwings fly over! FIRST OF THE SEASON!

I went back home via the "lower valley" and got this shot of a Rough-legged Hawk

At Church Slough, viewed from the new fishing access, there was a large number of Swans, mostly Tundra Swans, but I did find at least 6 Trumpeter Swans. Also, quite a few Ring-necked Ducks and a few Greater Scaup.

Good Birding

Josh