My first good lake bird

Given that I've been so hard up for yearbirds of late I figured I'd take the blog down memory lane.  In 2006 when we moved here Chris Barrigar and Tim had been seeing  Little Gulls at Tiscornia the last week of August.  I had a lot of holes on my Michigan list in the gull section since they're just so hard to chase.  I'd made a couple trips to the beach hoping for the Little Gull (and missed one by about 10 minutes), but the luck turned around Sept 1 when a cracking juvie landed on the beach behind me.

It was hanging out with a flock of Common Terns that would fly in and fly out, back and forth from the river water to the beach (kind of like what the terns were doing earlier this week too).

This was back in the days of digi-scoping and I took what (for then) was a lot of pics, probably 30-40.

You just don't see them in this crisp of plumage very often, if a bird cooperated like this now I'd come home with at least an order of magnitude more pics.  Flight shots were tough back in the digi-scoping days.

Last year my only Little Gull was a year ago tomorrow, I'll keep my fingers crossed.

20 miles of beach ...

doesn't hold as much as you might think.

A couple weeks ago Rhoda and I found a whimbrel on a hike between Cherry Beach and Weko.  We've tried a couple more times recently, repeating that hike as well as the slightly longer New Buffalo to Cherry Beach stretch (ok "slightly" is in the eye of the beholder).  I've made a few Tiscornia to Klock or Rocky Gap walks too.  The results? Limited.

A few more juveniles of various species are showing up.  Today was my first juvie Forster's Tern and Bonaparte's Gulls of the year.

The Bonaparte's is from Klock this morning, the Semi Plover from Tiscornia I think Sunday

We covered about 7 miles in the south county this morning.  There was a Willet in the New Buff harbor, but after several more miles the best we could manage was a year-old Lesser Black-backed Gull.

It's adding the black mantle it will carry into 2nd winter plumage and starting to get some darker primaries and primary coverts.

This evening a last check of the Tiscornia to Klock stretch revealed a Greater Yellowlegs in the gull flock.  I don't recall ever seeing a yellowlegs on the beach before though they do fly by now and then in varying numbers.

One of the juvie Herring Gulls decided it looked weird too since it made a pass at it flushing it right past me.

It's in wing moult too.  Sibley notes Greater moults in migration whereas Lessers moult afterward.