Eastern Pennsylvania was covered in snow, so I decided to take a trip with some friends, Joe Greco and Rick Wiltraut, to Presque Isle State Park. Presque Isle is in Lake Erie and there had recently been sightings of a Slaty-backed Gull there, a species which rarely shows up in Pennsylvania. I have to say I was more excited to see a new part of the state than to see a rare gull. As soon as we arrived after the five hour drive, we parked and Joe and Rick got out their scopes and started looking through the gulls. I honestly didn't expect to see so many, thousands of Ring-billed Gulls with a few Greater Black-backed Gulls. Joe and Rick seemed content looking for the one gull that may or may not be there, but I got bored quickly. I snapped a few photos of the Ring-bills then I started walking to see what was around the park.
The Ring-billed Gull on the left was flying away with a freshly caught fish. The one on the right looked as though it was viewing its reflection on the ice.
It didn't take me long to start finding trash. These were just a few items I picked up near the parking lot and dropped off at the truck before continuing on.
This gives you an idea of what the other two were looking at. This is at a location further into the park, but was about the same as the first stop. A Slaty-backed Gull doesn't look that much different from a Greater Black-backed Gull so they had to scan and find those first and look at them closely to make sure of what they were. In this photos there are at least two Greater Black-backed Gulls.
Walking up the road I found a place where I could access the Lake Erie side of the isle. I have to say I was surprised to find beaches. I thought it might just be a rocky shoreline. As I started to walk through the sand I found that there was plenty of trash to be picked up. I didn't even have my back pack on me so I found a planting container and started to fill that.
Then I came across this. I don't know if it was a fishing net or just a volleyball net that somehow made it into the lake. Whatever this netting was originally, as trash floating in the lake it managed to catch and kill a Red-throated Loon. I hand never seen one this close before and I was saddened that this is how I had to see it. I had nothing to cut the netting off of the dead loon so I had to take the whole thing with me. There was no way I was going to leave this netting on the beach to potentially find its way back into the lake and catch something else. I would have preferred to leave the bird, but it was really entangled.
The non-recyclables and sadly the loon too were thrown away and I took the recyclable items with me. We then left the park to try to find another vantage point for Joe and Rick to look for the Slaty-backed Gull.
After no success we returned to the park and I hit the beach again as they set up in the same spot as before and continued looking through the gulls. I got this handful before they were ready to move on again.
We then drove to the very last parking lot and hiked the trail to Gull Point. If we were going to find this gull it would be on Gull Point right? The trail was icy in places, like in the photo above. It was a nice hike out though.
Out on the point we did see gulls and more Greater Black-backeds than before, but still no Slaty-backed. At this point I was sure we were not going to see the gull on this trip.
When I think lakes, I don't think lighthouses, but there were several that we passed like this one that can be seen from Gull Point.
It was time to call it a day so we started to head back. Earlier in the year in this area a Snowy Owl was reported, I really was hoping we would see one of those more than a gull. We did not see either.
Got to the end of the trail just as the sun was starting its departure out of sight.
I filled my pockets on the way out to Gull Point. I would have had more had I thought to bring a pack along. We had planned to go back out looking for the gull the next day, but a storm was on its way in and in the morning we decided to head back home.
We did make a couple stops on the way back. This Red-tailed Hawk was in Bald Eagle State Park. We stopped there in hopes of seeing a Northern Shrike. We missed every bird we were chasing on this trip. Just no luck at all.
We did see two Bald Eagles in Bald Eagle State Park. They are the darker spots in the trees. In all it was a good trip. We didn't see the birds we wanted, but I got to explore a new area and was able to remove at least some trash. I would do the trip again, probably not for a Slaty-backed Gull though.
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