Hi All,
On Tuesday, 11/30/16 Dave Irons found a Black-legged Kittiwake in northern Marion County. This was great to find an ocean going gull inland. This was on a typical work day for me, and I had to wait till today to chase it. As my wife and I needed some items in Salem, and since it was reported this morning already, we struck out with high hopes. From Rt 218 I could not see any gulls on either side of the road for a minute, and then saw a flock of some 25 or so way to the west which settled down just out of sight, so I figured we had better back track toward the farm where we could get a better look. So we headed west on Raybell then north on Champoeg Rd, and to our surprise the gull was in the middle of the road in a few hundred yards. It looked to me like he was eating roadkill earthworms. (Seems he could find quite a few near that large farm on Raybell.)
So I pulled over as near him as I dared, snapped off a few pics of him, and then he flew around just behind me, and in short order I could see a vehicle coming down the road. The gull was just off on the shoulder now, and the car flushed it. Turns out it was Roy Gerig in the car. He was looking out in the fields for the gull, and almost ran it over not knowing it was there. We watched it off to the east near the highway, occasionally getting bombarded by a Peregrine. Eventually he returned to where we were and appeared to want to land in the road again, but when he saw Roy he changed his mind and headed off to the west side of the road, and the last we saw, he was sailing around over that field.
On the way there we had both passed a large flock of gulls about 2 miles south of Mt Angel, so we met there to look them over. Once there we noticed about a dozen black-bellied plovers and some dunlin among the gulls. We did not find anything unusual in the gull flock. The kittiwake was a new county bird for both of us. Thanks Dave.
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| Black-legged Kittiwake - Marion County, Or 11/20/16 |
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| Black-legged Kittiwake - Marion County, Or 11/20/16 |
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| Black-legged Kittiwake - Marion County, Or 11/20/16 |
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