On January 25 I noticed a report of a Black-headed Gull on the South Carolina Rare Bird Alert text group. The bird was found in Lexington County, which was not a county I was familiar with. But by far the most likely location for a wayward Black-headed Gull to show up in SC is somewhere on the coast, so I just assumed Lexington was one of the coastal counties. But just in case I opened one of the checklists and clicked on the map to check on its actual location. Lo and behold the bird wasn’t on the coast at all – it was being seen well inland in a suburb of Columbia which is “just” 2 hours away.
Now I just needed the Black-headed to stick around, and just as importantly, for me to muster enough interest to chase after it. Which makes me recall the term “activation energy” that I learned about in school in my chemistry classes. It can be defined as the minimum energy required to cause a process (such as a chemical reaction) to occur. And once that activation energy has been applied to the reactants, that reaction can’t be stopped. In a lot of ways, the tenets of activation energy can be applied to my state bird chases. Once I hear about a chaseable state bird, I need to develop enough interest (the “activation energy”) to make the chase. But once I’m committed to that chase, there’s no turning back. After 2 weeks of nearly daily sightings of the Black-headed Gull, I finally had exceeded the activation energy to chase after this SC rarity, and had an opening in my calendar to pursue the bird on February 11. To continue the analogy - the chemical reaction was underway.
The weather was a bit iffy as I awoke on the 11th – the prediction was for rain all morning in western NC, but with less rain as you headed south into the upstate of SC. It was raining lightly as I left the house and the radar showed that it was dry in Columbia, so the weatherman seemed to be correct – at least for now. But as I continued my drive south I passed through multiple rain bands,and some of the hardest were in SC. Then as I got to within 15 minutes of my Columbia the rain stopped and the roads were dry. Looks like the weather would be cooperative after all.
My destination was the Outlet Pointe Wastewater Treatment Plant, featuring an aeration lagoon measuring about an acre in size. The Black-headed was an adult mixed in a flock of up to 40 Bonaparte’s Gulls. And although it was reported most days, there had been a number of negative reports recently. I pulled into the small gravel parking lot next to lagoon at 9:30 and began my search.
There were quite a number of Bonaparte’s swimming, perched, and flying about, but with a quick binocular scan I couldn’t pick out the Black-headed. I then scanned more slowly with my scope but again no target. So much for an easy search. I tried changing my viewing point a few times just in case the Black-headed was hiding behind something, but still to no avail. I diverted my attention to the waterfowl on the lagoon, and picked out 9 species, but soon returned to my scans of the gulls. At one point I got excited when a larger gull flew in but it was a Ring-billed.
After about 2 hours I started to wonder if I should question my ID skills. I know Black-headed Gulls well, having seen them a number of times in the Mid-Atlantic and in New England, so I didn’t think I would have ID problems. I was just trying too hard – my target just wasn’t there.
Then a few minutes later a few Bonaparte’s took off from the lagoon, circled several times gaining altitude, and headed out. And just as I started to worry that all the gulls might be moving on, I spotted a gull overhead pitching into the lagoon. And this bird had dark underwings – I had my target Black-headed Gull! It first landed on a floating divider near the back and I was able to get this shot providing a good comparison with nearby Bonaparte’s, showing it’s red bill and legs, larger size, and paler mantle.
And I was even lucky enough to get this shot as it showed its dark underwings.
Black-headed Gull was number 303 for my SC state list. And in my state bird map below, SC is the 5th state where I’ve seen this species as a rarity (the brown-shaded states). The 6 blue-shaded states are those where I’ve seen it in its regular range.
