Burlington Intervale
December 25, 2009

Fourteen Iceland Gulls (13 first-cycle birds and one second-cycle) and a lone Glaucous Gull were among the highlights Ted Murin and I observed at the compost piles at the Burlington Intervale on Christmas Day. To the best of our knowledge, this is a Vermont record for Iceland Gulls in a single place. Here's a sense of what it looked like, replete with garbage, steam and a bucket from a front-end loader.

Can you count the Iceland Gulls in this scene below? Mouse-over the image to see arrows pointing to known or suspected Iceland Gulls. I recognize these aren't the best images, but, hey, difficulty is part of the joy of watching gulls.

(P.S. Yeah, that's a Lesser Black-backed Gull on this page's banner; it's from North Carolina.)

Yep, there's one Iceland Gull in the shot below (a bit hard to locate). Mouse-over the image to find it.

Here's a cleaner shot of a first-cycle Iceland Gull from Gloucester, Massachusetts.

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