The last few years have been rather underwhelming for late winter/early spring gulling in Connecticut. Traditionally, this has been peak time for gull numbers and diversity, as the annual bloom of barnacle larvae on Long Island Sound draws thousands of gulls to our western and central coast. But the event has dwindled over recent years. For whatever reason, numbers have been down. I had theorized that perhaps the lack of cold and snow for a few winters in a row had somehow affected the event, either by altering the volume of the larval bloom or the timing of the gull migration. This past winter was the coldest locally in 11 years. That early spring of 2015 ended up being a particularly good one for gulls. Connecticut's first Kamchatka Gull appeared, as did many Little Gulls, including a high count of seven at Southport Beach. So, I was hoping this past winter's weather would lead to an uptick in spring gull activity.
Unfortunately, that was not the case. The plankton event stayed very modest. There was a brief pulse in mid-late March, but again small and local.
My high count of Bonaparte's Gull was five. Five. Off the top of my head, I don't think there has been this significant a status change in any other species over my 25+ years of birding in Connecticut. We've gone from spring flocks of hundreds down to a handful at a time.
During that mid-late March pulse in activity, there was a bit of diversity, though you had to really work for them. I'm talking just a few each of Iceland and Lesser Black-backed, and a continuing Black-headed Gull.
 |
| Black-headed Gull |
 |
| Black-headed Gull |
 |
| Black-headed Gull |
 |
| Bonaparte's Gull |
 |
| Bonaparte's Gull |
 |
| Bonaparte's Gull |
 |
| first cycle Iceland Gull |
 |
| Lesser Black-backed Gull |
 |
| Lesser Black-backed Gull |
- NB
Comments
Post a Comment