This and That

The posts have been few and far between lately so I thought I'd give a quick update. Pretty much all of my birding over the past few months has been out of state. Sadly I wasn't able to spend much time at all sorting through the gulls that gather along the CT coast in late Mar-early Apr. I haven't been birding locally in several weeks, actually.

I was able to sneak away on Saturday PM to check out the possible Yellow-legged Gull on Cape Cod. While it's not going on my list yet due to the uncertainty of the identification, in short the bird looks quite good for YLGU and, if a hybrid LBBGxHEGU, it is certainly NOT a typical one. But I want to do some more research, contact friends in MA to get a feel for the feedback from European experts (I'm assuming a lot of the conversation has been done behind the scenes), and hope that the bird drops a feather for testing!

In the coming days I'll be writing up a trip report for Colorado - a great week of fast-paced birding.

Also, we're only a month away from what has become our annual Big Day effort here in CT. This year we really have our eyes on the state record, which stands at 186, after our narrow miss last year (185). The same team of 5 (Dugan, Gallo, Tripp, Zygmont and myself) is already getting pumped. The next four weeks will be chalk-full of emails and conference calls regarding our route and strategy. I'll have some time to scout in May, and so will a couple other team members. Maybe this is the year.

So that's about it. Hard to believe the first neotropical migrants are already trickling into the state. Looking forward to it!

- NB

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