On Sunday, I led a Gull Identification Workshop for York County Audubon. This outing was a bit different from my usual birdwalks and field trips, as it was very narrowly focused on just a few species. In fact, I didn’t even identify species at the first stop!

The reason? Gull identification begins with age identification. Since gulls take 2-4+ years to reach adulthood, and therefore adult plumage, there are not only many species of gulls (11 regularly occur in Maine), but also each species has up to 4 distinct plumages! However, once you can properly age each gull, identification to species becomes much easier. As we saw today, this can be learned relatively easily at any number of locations. The first step is a loaf of cheap bread or some stale popcorn. Throw it a few feet, step back, and learn your gulls!

With some cheap bread and nine budding larophiles (gull-lovers), we began at Back Cove, learning how to age the local Ring-billed and Herring Gulls, aided by a couple of loaves of cheap bread. Then, it was on to East End Beach, where we also worked through the ages of Great Black-backed Gulls as well. Although we barely looked at non-gulls today, I did have to stop and put the scope on a Northern Shrike here, since this was my 158th Eastern Prom Bird! (And, a few minutes earlier, I had another shrike fly over us as we were leaving the Back Cove parking lot, putting me at 19 for the winter!). But soon, it was back to focusing on larids!

After a spell at East End Beach – including the first round of the day’s quizzing! – we checked the piers and wharfs of Old Port. Unfortunately, few gulls were around – but that is to be expected on a Sunday when there’s no fishing activity at the docks. We did, however, enjoy good looks at one 1st Cycle (we also learned terminology like “cycle” today) Iceland Gull – one of at least four individuals of this species that has been hanging around the harbor this winter.

While visits to Mill Creek Cove in South Portland and Pond Cove in Cape Elizabeth failed to produce any more “white-winged” gulls, we were provided with ample opportunity to further practice our new skill set.

Later on, at the store, I was watching the feeders out the window, and I looked up to see a Barred Owl perched overhead, also watching the feeders! This was the 118th species on our store’s yard list! I quickly set up a scope to give some folks – especially a child – an up-close-and-personal view, but also to do some quick digi-scoping!