Date: 10/9/25 6:15 pm From: Mark Land <kestrelland...> Subject: Laughing Gulls at Clinton Lake
Very strange. A few weeks back Chris and Bryan had two Laughing Gulls (an adult and an immature) at Clinton Lake that were seen several times. Last Saturday Kevin had a first cycle at Bloomington East Park. Monday I went looking for this bird and Kathy and I independently saw a Laughing Gull in a plumage between first and second cycle on the sailboat pier. (Kathy, that was my strange Franklin's Gull I wanted photos of). Today I went back to see if I could get some more photos. I found it immediately on the sailboat pier. It flew back behind the pier and hunted for fish. I was able to get some distant photos as it flew around. After looking at a few of them I realized this was an even different Laughing Gull then the one I had seen Monday. Everything was similar, yet different. The size and the tail were what I noticed immediately. But photos show the upperparts, underparts, gray on the neck and head streaking, and bill color are not the same. So that is at least four in the last several months and three different ones this week. The ones I saw are easy to spot even though they are similar to the thousands of Franklin's Gulls. And there are 10's of thousands of Franklin's to look at.The wings are very long and dark. The dark on the head goes around the back of the head instead of the helmeted look of a Franklin's. The back of the neck is gray. In flight look for white central tail feathers with a white rump. I have not seen any Franklin's with that particular tail pattern! One is bigger than the Franklin's but, one is similar in size.
