Saturday, like the day before and the day after, dawned dark and wet, but Judy and Alison and I struck off for Oneida Lake anyway. The woods in Verona Beach State Park were dripping when we arrived–at first with water, and then with birds. A small flock of Black-capped Chickadees formed the core of a feeding frenzy that included White-breasted Nuthatches, Tufted Titmouses, Myrtle Warblers, a persistently singing Pine Warbler, a few Black-throated Green Warblers, and a couple of Ruby-crowned Kinglets; a dozen Cedar Waxwings stayed close but characteristically aloof from their lesser companions.

This flock also contained a single female Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, dwarfed by the pair of Pileated Woodpeckers feeding noisily in the dead trees overhead.

All these landbirds were a pleasant surprise. The lake, too, had a few birds on it, most abundant and most conspicuous among them half a thousand Bonaparte’s Gulls.

Ring-billed Gulls were common, too, and there were a few American Herring Gulls about; but I was most excited to see small gangs of Great Black-backed Gulls loafing on the sandbars.

Somehow I hadn’t expected to see them, common as they are nowadays everywhere between the coast and the Great Lakes.

Waterfowl were still scarce, with the exception of a nice raft of 200 Common Mergansers. I’m sure that will change in the next weeks as cold and ice creep down from the north!