By KAY CHARTER
One morning last month, I was in the barber chair at Shear Pleasure in Northport when a call came in from my husband. He called to tell me that Annette Deibel said there were flocks of what she thought were Bonaparte's gulls in front of her home.
Clint Craker, my favorite barber on the planet, finished his magic on my unruly mop and I headed immediately for Annette's home. Over the phone, she had said she wasn't absolutely positive whether the birds were Bonaparte's or whether they might be another black-headed species such as laughing gulls, but she thought they were the former.
When I reached her home, she invited me in and pointed out the large flocks of gulls scattered along the edge of the beach not far from her deck. They were small gulls with dark "hoods" (which cover head and face) and red legs and feet. Annette was right. They were Bonaparte's; and what a lovely sight they were strung along up the shoreline. She was delighted to have made the right call (no mean feat, as she doesn't have a good field guide to help her with identifications).
This species is, at 13 inches in length, the smallest regularly occurring North American gull. The more diminutive "little gull," an Old World species that nests occasionally on our continent, is slightly smaller.
The small size, buoyant flight and the way a Bonaparte's bobs lightly on the water have inspired a variety of poetic descriptive phrases from various writers.
Arthur Cleveland Bent, who began his epic 21-volume series "Life Histories of North American Birds" in 1910 at the request of the Smithsonian Institution, refers to Bonaparte's as "a pretty little gull," flocks of which he likens to "snowflakes wafting on the wind." He says of them, "I know of no prettier, winter, seashore scene than a flock of these exquisite little gulls hovering over some favorite feeding place, plunging into the cold gray water, unmindful of the chilly blasts and the swirling snow squalls."
Another writer said they "flutter like butterflies." And noted writer of all things feathered, Kenn Kaufman, calls them "delicate in flight."
The first time my husband and I sighted a Bonaparte's was in Rockport, Texas, about 20 years ago. We had gone out on the tour boat, Wharf Cat, in search of whooping cranes.
Texas Master Naturalist Ray Little was our guide. It's half an hour ride from the Cat's berth to Blackjack Peninsula, the southern limit of the refuge created for the great white birds. Ray is an excellent birder, and he called out a steady stream of identifications through his mike as we crossed Copano Bay.
A raft of ducks rested on the surface off the forward deck and a flock of black skimmers cruised low over the bay, lower mandible skimming the surface for food -- a behavior for which they were named. Three dolphins followed us into the center of the bay, playing in our wake.
Just past the halfway mark, Ray pointed out a small gull, bobbing alone on the waves. He identified it as a Bonaparte's and added that it was a "dainty little gull."
Bonaparte's are decidedly un-gull like in their habits. They feed largely on insects when inland or small fish found at the surface when they are on lakes or bays. You will not find this pretty little gull hanging around landfills or city dumps looking for easy pickings; garbage hunting is something they almost never do. They nest not on the ground as other gulls do, but rather in trees. The nest, fashioned of twigs and lined with mosses, lichens and grasses, is saddled on a horizontal branch 5 to 20 feet up in a spruce tree.
Bonaparte's are common in our area during migration, especially during November and the first half of May. Laughing gulls occur mostly along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts and are all but impossible here. Two other dark-headed species -- common black-headed and little gull -- are remotely possible, but only as rare individuals that, if found at all, are apt to be hanging around in flocks of Bonaparte's.
Kay Charter, of Omena, is executive director of Saving Birds Thru Habitat, an organization that teaches people how to help migrating birds whose populations are declining.
