Gullapalooza watch on Revere Beach: Tuesday, Feb 10, 10 am

[sohz...@gmail.com]

Folks,

 

Brookline Bird Club has scheduled a pop-up gullapalooza trip for Tuesday, February 10 at 10 am. Meet across from the State Police station, 220 Revere Beach Parkway. This is a short distance from the Wonderland Blue Line T station and not far from the Pink Apartment. There are excellent public restroom facilities at the police station. Parking is free and quite manageable.

 

Gullapalooza is a recurring, almost annual, event at Revere Beach: A big January storm washes up millions of surf clams on the beach and the clams entice thousands of gulls, of multiple species, to the beach. This year’s gullapalooza started a couple of weeks ago when that huge snow storm hit our region. The gull hordes started in the 4000 – 5000 range and culminated in the highest count I’ve seen so far, ~13,500 yesterday (Wednesday).

 

The species seen consistently:
-overwhelming numbers of American Herring Gulls of all ages

-Ring-billed Gulls
-Great Black-backed Gulls

-Glaucous Gull (one second cycle so far)

-Iceland Gulls (mostly first and second cycle, presumed Kumlien’s subspecies)

 

Other, rarer gulls:

-Black-headed Gull (seen and photographed by Sebastian Jones a while back)

-Lesser Black-backed Gulls (multiple subadults, one or two adults)

-Glaucous X American Herring hybrids

 

I suggest:

Wear everything you got, including water-proof and snow-proof footwear. As of last week-end, climbing over the snow berms to reach the beach was a chore.

Bring a scope if you can.

Tide is low around 11:40 so we should be able to walk on wet sand rather than mounts of snow and ice.

Above all: study up on your gulls!

 

 

From the BBC web site:

https://www.brooklinebirdclub.org/tripevent/revere-beach-pop-up-trip-for-gulls-event/

Revere Beach Pop-up trip for Gulls (Gullapalooza)

Tuesday, February 10 @ 10:00 am - 1:00 pm

We are adding a trip to Revere Beach where a lot of gulls are present due to winter storms throwing up or exposing clams on the beach for them to eat. Large number of gulls including possibly rare gulls are there. We’ll do our best to sort through the gulls for rare ones and to work on identifying common gulls that haven’t reached adult plumage yet.

We may have to traverse deep snow, probably places where people have walked but it isn’t fully packed. Also might be messy conditions on the beach below the high tide point. Could be pretty cold. Dress for the expected conditions.

Bring a scope if you can.

There are good bathroom facilities at the meeting spot.

Low tide is 11:41 am. We want a lower tide to expose the food and give room for everything going on.

 

 

 

Soheil Zendeh

Littleton, MA