Yesterday on November 15th, 2015, I was at work and I saw a report come into the Listserv from Melanie Herring saying that she had found a Heerman's Gull at Glendale Recharge Ponds! Having a few hours left on the work clock, I was able to get over and see the Heerman's Gull roughly at 2:50 P.M. It was a new Maricopa County bird for me (Maricoper), number 371 to be exact. The gull calmly sat in Basin 5 of the ponds the entire time I was there. This was a cool thing for me. Last year, I missed out on a Heerman's Gull that showed up at the Glendale Recharge Ponds because I was stuck at work all day. Luckily, I don't work all day shifts anymore, so if that rare bird does show up, I can chase more things and have that freedom to go more often. My camera wasn't along, but I did have a spare pair of binoculars in my truck for such emergencies. I was able to speed over to the ponds on a rainy day after work to see my first Maricopa County Heerman's Gull. I swear, I even said, "Here Man", and the gull looked in my direction. Because my camera was missing in action, I had to go hard core and take some pictures from my iPod through my binoculars.
Jason Wilder from Flagstaff showed up at the ponds while I was there and he kindly let me take a picture attempt through his scope. Thanks Jason! I didn't get much of a chance to try for a better photo before my iPod's battery died, but I did get something somewhat better.
Hey, at least it shows the red bill, right!? I want to give a huge thanks to Melanie Herring for finding this bird. Over the years, Melanie has found me a lot of really neat birds, whether them being life birds, county birds, or good year birds. Glendale Recharge Ponds is a location I visit more often than other locations because it is 15 minutes away from home. Getting a new bird for Glendale is always fun. In the last week I've added two new birds to that list to bring that total up to 208 species, a Lawrence's Goldfinch and of course, the Heerman's Gull.....
