Nature Note: A Naturalist's Travels Through Nature

After a long month of snow, blustery weather, icicles freezing onto the house, and winter in general, yesterday I decided to treat myself to some birding up in Essex County. With the winter having taken a toll on my sanity to a certain degree, I thought that it would be nice to get out and try to find some year birds. Little did I know, how good of a day it was going to be. I awoke at 7:00am and got out by 7:45am to meet the rush hour along Route 95 to Gloucester. My plan was to visit 6 different locations to secure year birds I wanted on my list,most of which I wouldn't get to see again until late next fall or winter (provided I'm still on the East Coast as well). The locations included Bass Rocks and Jodrey Fish Pier in Gloucester, Parker River in Newburyport, Salisbury Beach in Salisbury, Deer Island near Winthrop, and Horn Pond in Woburn. After braving the throngs of cars leading to Gloucester, I arrived at the looming snowed in walls of Jodrey. While the walls of sn...

There are both Glaucous and Iceland Gulls in this picture, but which is which? Can you tell the difference? After spending my birthday weekend birding with Alison, we decided to to hit up Jodrey Fish Pier in Gloucester in order to locate the Thick-billed Murre ( Uria lomvia ) that had been spotted in recent days. We came up short on that front, but came across a fairly uncommon winter sight. This lead not only to seeing both our first Glaucous Gulls ( Larus hyperboreus ), but also how they differed plumage-wise, from the nearby Iceland Gulls ( L. glaucoides ). After snapping a few pictures, I was initially at a loss to try and identify them. Since I'm newish to gull ID (my favorite plumage is that of a Ring-billed Gull ( L. delawarensis ) in its 1st winter plumage), I looked through my preferred guides and came up with a diagnosis. After browsing through the basic guides provided by Kaufman (least helpful) and National Geographic: Eastern Region (somewhat helpful), I con...