Lake of the Lilies 2/9--Lesser Black-backed Gull

 I made a few stops around Point Pleasant this morning. Things didn't get off to a good start at Baltimore Avenue which has been turned into a construction site, so I wasn't able to set up my scope, what with dump trucks backing up and excavators scurrying around on their treads. And the tide was in, so there was no sand bar on which one may find an "interesting" gull. Three minutes of that was enough. 

Purple Sandpipers, Manasquan Inlet

I drove over to the Manasquan Inlet and set myself up on the jetty. Unlike the jetty at Barnegat Light, one can walk this jetty without risking life and optics. One can stand on it and scope the ocean without worrying about slipping between the rocks with one wrong step. One does not have an excuse to like "this is too dangerous" or "this is too wet" to get off the jetty. And if you like to look at Common Loons, that was the place to be today. I was kind of hoping for gannets, which I need for the county, but none were in evidence. I did see one Razorbill, always fun to find, but no Dovekies, murres, or guillemots, which are a lot more fun. Most of my entertainment was provided by a big flock of Purple Sandpipers that were feeding on the cement jacks that buttress the jetty. I heard them peeping when I got toward the end of the jetty, and they kept flying up and over the inlet. Every so often, I'd rest my eyes by looking down into the crevasses and see them standing there. Unlike the Barnegat jetty, there doesn't seem to be much growing on the cement there, so what they're finding to eat is a mystery. 

To the south there was what my friend Linda would call a large "herd" of gulls, Herring and Great Black-backed. In any large congregation of gulls there is a very good probability of finding an "interesting" gull if one is 

A) patient &

B) knows what one is looking for.

Since A) does not apply to me and I am spotty on B), I did not walk down the beach to scope the herd. 

Killdeer, Lake of the Lilies

Instead, I went to Lake of the Lilies. It was better than the last time I was there, when the water was 90% frozen, but the duckage was much less than what I'd expect. Predominately scaup (2 greater, the other lesser) and Ruddy Ducks, with the usual American Coots. (Any guesses as to why this is the best place south of the Manasquan Reservoir to find coots?) There was also a big flock of gulls in the middle of the water. I walked around 3/4 of the lake (.4 miles), trying to find anything unusual (Tufted Duck would be nice), while thinking to myself, again, that out of all those gulls, one must be an oddball. When I turned around and got back to my car on Elizabeth Ave, a birder I know had set up his scope just behind where I was parked. We compared notes ("Too bad about Baltimore Avenue") and talked about gull experts we know. We also wondered where the Killdeer were that usually feed on the grassy strip between the water and the fence. Wondering brought two of them in--who knows where they were hiding--and then J found a Lesser Black-backed Gull immature, no less, just to add to the degree of difficulty. I had some difficulty finding it (Greater Black-backs kept getting in the way), but then the bird took off and flew to our right, giving very good looks. When it returned, a few minutes later, good comparisons could be made between it and the other bigger gulls. J was saying before he found the Lesser, that he wanted to get good at gulls. I just want to get good gulls. And I'll mooch them if I have to.