Thayer's, Lesser Black-backed, and Glaucous Gulls at Peoria Lake

Having driven all the way to Quincy, IL to see the Ivory Gull a day too late, it was nice to hear the next day that Jim Mountjoy had found a Slaty-backed Gull less than an hour away in East Peoria. After I got home from church, I noticed a text on my phone from Travis Mahan about this find. So I called Joe Phipps to let him know, ate a quick lunch, and I was on my way again, but this time to Peoria Lake. When I arrived, there was already a crowd of 10-15 birders, including Joe, Matthew Winks, Shanin Abreu, Angelo Caparella, Ted Hartzler, Jim Mountjoy, and Andy Sigler. A Lesser Black-backed Gull had been found when we arrived, but the Slaty-backed had flown away shortly after Jim found it, and had not been seen by anyone else.

I wasn't there long before Winks had identified three Thayer's Gulls, and Thayer's was a lifer for me. It wasn't an Ivory Gull or a Slaty-backed, but a lifer is a lifer, and perhaps this one meant more to me in some ways than an Ivory Gull. Up until a week ago, finding an Ivory Gull had been nowhere on my radar, but I had been searching for a Thayer's Gull for at least three years, and there they were--not one, but three of them. The first I saw was a typical dark-eyed adult on the left in the photo below beside a Herring Gull.



Winks also discovered this 3rd Cycle Thayer's with pale eyes.





And he was excited to find this 2nd Cycle Thayer's.







Here is a 2nd cycle Herring that was there for comparison.



And here are an adult type Herring Gull, and a Ring-billed Gull that I photographed.





Eventually Amar Ayyash showed up, and Joe and I followed Matthew, Shanin, Angelo, and Amar to the other side of the river, where there was a fourth Thayer's Gull--an adult type Thayer's with pale eyes.





The second cycle bird also showed up, having followed the bread to the other side of the lake as did the Lesser Black-backed Gull.





Then the adult Thayer's with the dark eye showed up, and it was nice to be able to see it close up and compare it with the the Herring Gulls.





Just when it seemed that things could not get any more exciting a 1st Cycle Glaucous Gull flew in!













Here is a shot with both the adult Thayer's and the Glaucous Gull in the same frame.



Eventually, the Lesser Black-backed Gull also came in closer.





We finished the afternoon with five gull species, as I saw every white-headed gull species I had ever seen at the same location in the same moment.



These events took place on January 11, 2015, but this post was written and published on January 19, 2015