Where have all the gulls gone?

The other day I was telling a fellow birder that I’ve been wondering why I hadn’t seen many seagulls where I normally see them, such as at Colonial Lake. It also includes the Lawrence Shopping Center on the opposite side of Business Route 1, where ring-billed gulls often hover over the parking lot, looking for pizza crusts or other treats that we humans drop onto the pavement.

I did see a good number of herring gulls recently at Abbott Marshlands in Trenton, the first notable activity I’d seen in months.

Things changed today when I went to the Millstone River Impoundment in Princeton. As soon as I got out of my car, I spotted several gulls flying overhead. They were ring-billed gulls, I soon determined as I looked through my binoculars at half a dozen of them bobbing on Lake Carnegie.

One of the gulls was standing on the railing of the wooden bridge that leads pedestrians over the waters at the edge of the lake and the Delaware and Raritan Canal. The gull was on the far side of the bridge, and I took a few shots from two spots as I crossed the bridge. Every other time I crossed that bridge with a gull parked on the railing, the birds always took off as I came closer.

This time, the bird was amazingly calm. I passed by it, saying softly: “It’s OK. No need to go.” And so it stayed as I walked on.

The other highlight from the visit was a red-bellied woodpecker that was squawking repeatedly above me as I walked on the canal towpath. I finally spotted him in a bare tree that had several cavities in its trunk.

I took several shots, then realized I didn’t have the bird’s beak clear of the trunk. I took a couple of steps to my right to get the full bird. The sunlight illuminated the bird well, and the trunk and branches made for dramatic framing. 🦅