Baywatch

Late this afternoon, I headed over to the Delaware Bay to look for a vagrant gull that had been reported earlier in the day. My friend Vince had already arrived, and had scanned through the flock on a nearby sandbar; the target bird was centered in his telescope. A quick peek yielded the gull, snoozing contentedly among a host of its cousins, head tucked firmly under one wing. And as an added bonus, we had the "coming soon" preview of another painted sunset.

Sadly, I couldn't get any pictures of the Black-headed Gull, a species that was abundant around our former digs in the UK; it was too far away for my little camera. Instead, I had to be content with this American Herring Gull, which was rummaging along the tideline, looking for tidbits. It looks like the red spot on its beak is already starting to color up a bit. That spot is a cue for its chicks while they're still being fed by Mom or Dad; the chick pecks that spot when it's ready to be fed, and the parent barfs up whatever it's carrying in its stomach (dead fish, McDonald's french fries, baby birds -- whatever). Gross, but an effective means of transporting things when you don't have hands to carry them with!