Franklin’s Gull – Blue Marsh Lake, PA

Yesterday afternoon, Josh Lefever and I visited Blue Marsh Lake to search through the massive gull roost for a Franklin’s Gull that had been seen there every evening since the 15th. As we pulled in to the park, we could see many gulls flying down into the area to join the roost. There were already easily a few thousand gulls present and more and more continued to come in constantly. A beautiful juvenile Glaucous Gull was making itself very obvious right down in front of us on the beach – the largest gull present and almost pure white! After a few minutes of scanning the flock, Geoff Malosh picked out the first winter Franklin’s Gull swimming just off the beach. For the entire rest of our visit the Franklin’s Gull remained in view, floating just a few feet off the beach or standing among the Ring-billed Gulls on the beach. There were also three Lesser Black-backed Gulls present – two adults and one subadult. Here is a link to our full checklist for our time at Blue Marsh. Below are some photos I took of the more interesting gulls, unfortunately the birds were distant and it was getting dark out.

First-winter Franklin's Gull and Ring-billed Gull at Blue Marsh Lake (Photo by Alex Lamoreaux)

Glaucous Gull - juvenile at Blue Marsh Lake (Photo by Alex Lamoreaux)

Glaucous Gull - juvenile at Blue Marsh (Photo by Alex Lamoreaux)

Lesser Black-backed Gull - subadult at Blue Marsh (Photo by Alex Lamoreaux)