ML380051011

Age

Not specified

Sex

Not specified

Behaviors

Flying

Observation details

Rare* First county record* Seen in the flock of LAGU for 36 mins. Partial black hood, thick white eye arcs, and white spots on the primaries visible. Took off south at 7:45. At 7:09 A.M. I noticed a gull flying into the LAGU flock, assembling on the sandbar, that looked slightly different. I took some shots of it and determined that it could possibly be a FRGU, due to the partial hood, eye arcs, and small bill, but it was hard to be sure just from the low-light flight shots I got. Once it landed in the flock I attempted to locate it and finally did locate it at 7:17, but only its head was exposed and only for short periods of time, due to being obscured by a RBGU. Unfortunately since its head was only exposed I did not feel comfortable calling it a FRGU for sure, since I could not get a view of its primaries. Thankfully at 7:25 it finally moved out into the open and revealed large spots of white on the primaries, sealing the deal on it being a Franklin's Gull. I watched as it walked around, preened, and even got aggressive towards a LAGU at one point. At 7:43 a large section of the LAGU flock started to take off in waves and I figured that the FRGU would soon be leaving. I was right as at 7:45 another wave of LAGU took off and the FRGU went with them south. About 15-20 mins after it took off, many LAGUs flew onto the sandbar coming from the south, but after extensive searching through the flock it was determined that the FRGU was not with them.

Technical information

Model

NIKON D3300

Lens

200.0-500.0 mm f/5.6

ISO

800

Focal length

500 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire

f-stop

f/9.0

Shutter speed

1/500 sec

Dimensions

1154 pixels x 770 pixels

Original file size

593.65 KB