While leading a Menotomy walk along the Charles yesterday, someone walking by stopped to tell us about a hawk he saw take a gull in midair by the Moody St. Bridge recently. I can’t see that being anything other than a Peregrine, so after seeing nothing much elsewhere today, I headed over to that stretch of the river to see if I could find it.
Starting at the Prospect St. end, I quickly picked up a flock of Ring-necked Ducks, which is probably the group that hasn’t been around the other stretch lately. A bit further down a flock of Cedar Waxwings took off. I continued along, scanning through the gulls and ducks hoping for something a bit different when I came across this:
A gull with pale wing tips! The light was pretty bad here and I was having a hard time judging the size of the bird. Fortunately it was almost at Moody St. so I quickly crossed the bridge and got a better angle. The gull apparently took off while I did so as I couldn’t find it immediately. But a few seconds later, it came flying in.
It landed and sat for a few minutes giving some nice views. A family started throwing bread from the other side and it eventually flew over to join the frenzy. It appeared to have grabbed something quickly and moved back to the same spot where it sat until I moved on.
My second for Waltham and just a slightly better sighting than the first.
Awesome in flight captures of the Iceland Gull Jason. What do you think, second year bird? It looks like the base of its beak is starting to turn light. Well done!
No luck with the Peregrine it appears.
Thanks for the comments everyone.
Larry, I think it’s still a 1st cycle as the bill is mostly dark and there’s no hint of any solid adult mantle coloration.
Bob, along the coast here, they’re only somewhat uncommon. I was up in Gloucester a couple days before I found this one and had about 8 in one scan! Inland, like this one, they are quite hard to find.
Wow! Excellent capture of a very rare gull!
Beautiful flight photographs. Beautiful gull.