Jan 2, 2008

Lifebirds #12 and #13 - A Gull and a Dove

Who hasn’t seen a Ring-billed Gull? I’ve seen this species of gull innumerable times, of course, always calling it a “seagull” like everybody else. But the first one I noted after I started keeping a life list was one of the several I saw feeding on the ground in a parking lot in my hometown. The photo I’ve used here is of a not-quite-adult I saw in Winona several years later. A better birder than I could probably identify this individual as a second- or third-year bird. But I can only say, “Look, it has spots on its head and breast. It’s immature!”

You have very good eyesight indeed if you can spot the Mourning Dove sitting on a nest in this photo (but click on it to see a larger image). This is not a photo of my lifer Mourning Dove, but it is a photo of an individual in my yard about twenty feet in the air above the spot where I did see my lifer in September of 2003.

Species	Ring-billed Gull / Larus delawarensis
Where	Market Place shopping center, Little Canada, MN
Species	Mourning Dove / Zenaida macroura
Where	Home, Little Canada, MN
When	September 2003
With	Joann
Number	12 - 13