[Mich-chat] Green Lake (Allegan Co.) gull swarm inc. 6 Lesser Black-backeds, 21 Nov

[Caleb Putnam]

All-

Rick Brigham and I checked Green Lake in Allegan Co. today at dusk (21 Nov)
and were impressed to find about 4,000 gulls amassing there for the night
roost. We were also rather surprised to find no fewer than 6 Lesser
Black-backed Gulls, 4 adults and 2 juveniles, mixed in. For an inland site
this seems a very high total. No white-winged gulls or other rarities were
noted, but we were losing light very rapidly by the time we arrived. The
flock was 80/20% Herring and Ring-billed, with a very few Bonaparte's Gulls
mixed in. This is a site which could easily hold a rarity at some point
given the large #s of birds. We do not yet know where the majority of these
birds spend their daytime, but the Kent Co. landfill on 100th St just west
of US-131 holds up to several hundred daily.

Green Lake is located in far NE Allegan Co., about 3.5 miles east of US-131
and 1 mile south of the the Kent/Allegan Co. line (108th St). Here are the
google map coordinates:

42.750794,-85.597258

Here is the eBird checklist from our visit:
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S9174748

We viewed the lake from between residences along the west shore of the lake
(6th St.). We are not aware of any public accesses on the lake. Hopefully
some more regular monitoring of this site will turn up something rare.

Good birding,
Caleb Putnam

-- 
Caleb G. Putnam
Sand Lake, MI
caleb.putnam at gmail.com