Shorebird migration: good news on Red Knots at Brig?

The lives of us Hidden New Jerseyans get complicated this time of year. There are always festivals, great events at historic sites and more opportunities for us to make friends within the conservation community. And spring migration gives us limited chances to see birds decked out in their finest plumage on their way to their mating territory. Even the birds that raise families in New Jersey get frustratingly hard to see as they settle down and build nests in trees whose branches have suddenly become so leafy they obscure anything within.

This larger-than-life representation of a Red Knot
memorializes Moonbird, who's been commuting
via the Delaware Bayshore for 20 years (and we hope still is!).

And then, there are the Red Knots. You might remember them from our story last year. They're the endangered shorebirds that make a pit stop on the Delaware Bayshore enroute from their winter homes in Argentina and Chile to their summer breeding grounds in Arctic Canada. The window to see them is pretty darned small: generally a few weeks or less in May and June, after the horseshoe crabs have come out of the water to lay their eggs on the shore. Knots take advantage of that ever-reliable cycle to fatten up before flying the final leg of their 9000+ mile journey.

Similarly, scientists flock to the Bayshore in large numbers this time of year to assess the health of the Red Knot population and its potential for growth. The fate of the species and the horseshoe crab are obviously intertwined, and efforts to bolster the crab population will have a major impact on these amazing travelers.

Given other obligations, we didn't have the luxury of journeying to the Bayshore on a May weekend, as much as we would have liked. And given that Memorial Day came so early this year, there was no way we were going to go as far south as the Cape May County peninsula. Instead, we took our chances with Forsythe NWR, a.k.a. Brig, figuring we'd be able to see at least some of the shorebirds we needed to bolster our year lists.

Still, I was hoping that a Red Knot or two would be in the mix. Considering how many warblers we'd missed seeing in New Jersey this spring, it seemed the fates owed us a treat.

As we started our drive along the eight-mile Wildlife Drive atop the impoundment berm, we noted that the tide was out, leaving broad expanses of mud between large islands of marsh grass. Normally conditions like that leave a lot to be desired; a bit more water would concentrate the birds into a smaller area of drier ground. As we scanned broad swaths of mud, we considered the possibility we'd have to do a second sweep a few hours later, once the tide had come in.

Still, though, we were finding occasional groups of shorebirds as we drove further along. Small Sandpipers and the occasional Willets gave us hope that we'd at least see something on our first go 'round.

Then we heard the ruckus. A pebbly expanse just past the grassy shoulder of the berm was alive with birds busily pecking in the dirt for their mid-morning meal. The noise was extreme as dozens of Ruddy Turnstones pecked and dug and, well, turned stones to search for their meal. A couple of sizeable horseshoe crab shells stood motionless nearby, sending the silent message that yes, in fact, there might just be some eggs there, fairly far from the oceanfront. This was a gathering well worth leaving the car to investigate.

Like bargain-seekers at the discount table, Turnstones pushed Sandpipers and their breed brethren aside to get a better angle on the possible horseshoe crab egg bonanza just below the surface. They were fun to watch, but both Ivan and I had the feeling a good surprise could be there for us, too. Scanning the group, I decided to get a bit closer to see if I could spy the birds that were so close to the berm they were obscured by grass. And, I saw... yes....

A Red Knot! Milling among the Turnstones, the sole bird of its kind plucked its way through the stones and sand for a good meal. While the Knot was a singleton, it looked rather healthy and plump, as if it might have been chowing down for a good couple of days. Forsythe isn't generally known as the place to go to see Red Knots, being on the Atlantic Coast rather than the Bayshore, but at least one decided to grace us with its presence.

As we later discovered when checking in with the Conserve Wildlife folks who keep track of such things, this year's count of migrants to the Delaware Bayshore has been especially good. That got me thinking about how our Red Knot found his way to a beach within viewing distance of Atlantic City. It's always possible that this single individual got a little confused or misplaced from the flock that usually ends up farther south and west, but I'd personally like to think that he's the harbinger, maybe the trendy guy who thinks he discovered the next great place for migrating Red Knots to spend their brief but meaningful Jersey Shore vacation.

Yes, I'll admit I'm anthropomorphizing, but we can always hope that these small but mighty shorebirds will become so abundant that they'll need to stretch out a bit when they visit here in future migrations. Would it be the worst thing for Red Knots to visit AC every once in a while?

Back to the Brig: life continues at Forsythe after Sandy

It had been a good long time since Ivan and I had been to Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, a.k.a. Brig. Looking back at my birding notes, our last visit was in August, when we went to see the ever amusing, rare to New Jersey reddish egret. We've had a good year at that location, with plenty of new life birds for me and a reportable sighting of two black-bellied whistling ducks for Ivan. Even without a big-name spotting, a couple of hours at Brig always leaves me with a warm feeling about the future for our regional wildlife. There's definitely a home for threatened and endangered species to nurture and raise their young.

A three month gap between visits doesn't seem like a lot, unless you consider that for a couple of weeks in that time, we couldn't have gone there if we'd wanted to. You see, Hurricane Sandy was as unkind to Brig as it was to most of the other Federal lands in the New Jersey area. Storm surges severely damaged the refuge's Wildlife Drive, pushing salt water to breach berms separating the Atlantic from freshwater pools, and strewing detritus around some of the more ecologically-sensitive areas. We were saddened to hear about the storm's impact on one of our favorite birding spots and hoped the problems could be resolved before the ecosystem suffered any further negative impact. Had the birds been so disturbed, had their habitat been so affected that they'd avoid the place for a while?

It was a question that was answered in less time than we thought. About ten days after the storm, Refuge staff reported on Facebook that the numbers of birds were continuing to increase day by day. Then on November 16, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reopened portions of Brig. The visitor center and walking trails are accessible, and portions of the land-based roadways are open to foot traffic, but the Wildlife Drive through the impoundment pools remains closed until repairs can be completed.

Obviously, we had to check it out. We knew that the inaccessibility of the impoundments meant we'd see fewer water birds close-up, but the Refuge's pines might yield the winter finches that have been eluding us. And yes, we had to see Sandy's impact for ourselves, if possible.

When we got to the parking lot yesterday, we found the place to be unusually quiet for a Sunday morning. Only one other car was in the lot, and since the drives were closed, we knew we had to be just about the only visitors to the property.

Undeterred, we started exploring the wooded areas nearest the lot. A quick check of the kids' area behind the restrooms revealed a wealth of species, including towhee, golden crowned kinglet and Carolina wren as well as your general winter yardbirds like cardinal, Carolina chickadee and white-breasted nuthatch. The pine grove near the administration building didn't yield any crossbills or grosbeaks, but the area looked fine, little changed by the storm.

The visitor center was open by the time we were about to walk past to go to the gull pond, so we stopped in. Staff members there corroborated what I'd been thinking: maybe the relative quiet of a human-light environment would encourage birds to get a bit braver about roaming closer to the public areas. One woman even mentioned she'd seen a larger number of harriers scanning the area than she had in quite a while. It seemed that if we weren't going to be able to see the hundreds of ducks and geese normally on the impoundment pools, we'd still find a good range of late fall and winter species on the property.

The gull pond is usually a reasonably short drive via a hard-packed sand road. Now open only to foot traffic, it offers a good view of a couple of expanses of water that often produce a variety of egrets, ducks, gulls and shorebirds. This time was no exception, including a large group of killdeer whose distinctive vocalizations announced their arrival. True to form, harriers were scanning the marsh grass, and we spied two adult bald eagles in the distance, apparently enjoying a nice flight together.

It was those eagles who gave me a real show later on. As Ivan and I were walking the Leeds trail on the other side of the visitable refuge area, I noticed the two raptors high up in the distance, performing a sky ballet together. They'd fly near each other, briefly part, and then soar almost in synch, one ahead of the other. A few times, one would fly almost upside-down beneath the other in what looked like a show-off stunt. I've seen birds hassle each other, but this was clearly not what these two were doing. Perhaps they were... flirting? Were they a mated pair?

I watched bare-eyed as they danced, enjoying the performance that apparently Ivan and I were the only humans present to see. Then, improbably, I saw one fly upside-down under the other, locking talons to perform the classic eagle maneuver of tumbling together toward the ground below. Was I witnessing a true mating ritual? "Omigod, omigod omigod..." I exclaimed, trying to get Ivan's attention as I brought the binoculars up to my eyes. And then they disengaged after a few tumbles, righted themselves and flew onward, out of view.

That experience brought me farther along the bald eagle circle of life that's been forming for me during visits to Brig. On my initial trip there last year, Ivan pointed out an immature eating its prey on an ice-covered impoundment pool. Since then I've seen enough juveniles and adults to realize that the refuge isn't just a stop-over for bald eagles; it's a place they count on for sustenance. And maybe now my dancing friends are preparing to raise a family there, if they haven't been doing that already.

Maybe there's still a lot of work to be done to bring the refuge back to its pre-storm state, and maybe only part of the property is open for visitation, but there's still a lot of life there, and tons to observe. You should get out there, and let us know what you discover for yourself!

Unfazed by Shark Week? Give Heron Week a try.

Discovery Channel has Shark Week.

Hidden New Jersey had Heron Week.

Okay, it doesn't have the same menacing bite or blood-curdling suspense, and we didn't need to protect ourselves with a cage, but our bird week had the element of surprise and even a fun new dance step.

This tricolor heron has been hanging around
the Meadowlands for a couple of weeks. 

Followers of our Facebook page already know about our first three episodes. I'm going to cheat a little and start on August 15, when I got a view of the tricolor heron that's been hanging around DeKorte Park in Lyndhurst. Reasonably rare for New Jersey, he was hanging out among some terns, perched in the open on a railing along the Marsh Discovery Trail. (Many thanks to the Meadowlands Commission's Jim Wright for setting me on course!)

Last Wednesday, I had a three-heron day at Echo Lake Park in Mountainside. The lower lake segment yielded a not-unexpected great blue heron along with a curfew-busting black-crowned night heron. The nice surprise for me there was the presence of not one, but two green herons. While they're not tremendously rare, they're not exactly an everyday occurrence, and I was glad to have found and identified them on my own.

Green herons really seem to like
Union County parks in August.

The next day I returned to Echo Lake with my camera, hoping to get a shot of the green heron, but he'd already moved on. Just as well, as I located one (maybe even the same guy) at adjacent Lenape Park in Cranford. A subsequent trip to Surprise Lake in Watchung Reservation yielded yet another greenie, not far from another great blue.

Later that afternoon, a check of the American Bird Association bulletin boards revealed big news: a reddish egret was spotted at one of our regular birding destinations, Forsythe NWR (a.k.a. Brig). This was significant. I'd never seen one, and the range map in the Sibley guide showed it as a rare visitor to the Eastern Seaboard. Just as important, the guide described the bird as "very active, chasing fish on foot, running, jumping and spinning." This I had to see: the Bird Minister of Silly Walks. Check out this video for a sample, and tell me you wouldn't want to check it out, too. There's something very appealing about watching a bird that looks like a drunken frat boy hunting for his lost keys.

Ivan and I decided that waiting for the weekend was not an option. If reports in the morning said that the bird was still at the refuge, we were making the trip to see it. All egrets, of course, are herons, so a chase for the reddish egret would fit perfectly into our theme week.

Friday morning dawned, bringing with it news of the bird still in its reported area at Brig. After getting some non-birding activities out of the way, we hopped on the Parkway, hoping the shore traffic hadn't started yet. We ran into some frustrating construction delays but told each other that if fate deemed the bird would leave before we got to him, we'd accept it.

Once we got to the refuge, we blew off the usual first stops and went directly to the eight-mile loop road through the marsh. Thursday's reports had the bird at the dogleg turn about three-quarters down the road, but a crowd of cars and birders were clustered about a mile or two into the drive. If this wasn't the egret, it was definitely something worth seeing.

Ivan pulled up to a couple of the gathered birders and rolled down the window to ask if it was the reddish egret. Yup.

"I thought it was at the dogleg."

The other birder shrugged. "It has wings."

Our quarry was roosted in a distant cedar tree, along with a couple of snowy egrets. Apparently he'd already eaten, because he seemed more interested in preening than in jumping down and doing the runaround dance. Or perhaps we'd just timed it badly and had to wait for the next show. In any case, his staying put allowed us to get a good view through the scope, enough of a study to feel that we could add the reddish egret to our New Jersey birding lists. And besides, though the bird didn't seem to want lunch, we humans were famished. We'd head over to JD's for a burger and return to see what else Brig had to offer us that day.

Our hunger eliminated, we returned to the refuge, this time making our usual stops before embarking on the loop road. A stop near the gull pond produced a view of easily a dozen great egrets perched in a tree, along with assorted others wading about. In the time since we'd left, however, the tide had rolled in, displacing many of the shorebirds that had been walking around the mudflats on our earlier visit. Maybe this wouldn't be such a productive visit, after all.

A new set of birders were perched and focused at the same spot in the road as we'd been with the earlier crowd, and for good reason. Perhaps encouraged by a higher water level, the reddish egret had come down from his perch to forage for fish. We stopped again, pulled out the viewing scope and were rewarded with the sight of him pacing around the shallows. Apparently a juvenile, he didn't seem to have the silly walk down pat, but he was entertaining to watch, nonetheless. Seeing that performance, I was satisfied to have gotten a good view of a creature I might never be in the presence of again, at least not in the Garden State.

That would have been a great ending to Heron Week, but our luck continued the following day when we visited Salem County. Driving through the countryside enroute to Hancock's Bridge, we passed the inevitable cattle and... the accompanying cattle egrets. Ten of them were patrolling the pasture, some close to the cattle and others a little on their own. Not as improbable to New Jersey as the reddish egret, it was still a nice find for us.

Heron Week aside, we've been very fortunate to see some rare and wonderful avian visitors to New Jersey over the past year. Whether it's due to global warming or just an odd coincidence for them to find their way here, I'm grateful that places exist for them to rest, find food and seek refuge. Who knows what's in store for next year's Heron Week?

Everything but a partridge in a pear tree: a banner day at Brig

You know it's going to be a good birding day when you spot two bald eagles on a transmission pole on the side of the Garden State Parkway at 7 a.m.

July is not the best month to go birding. As I mentioned when describing our Glassboro jaunt, it's both humid and fraught with the perils of greenhead flies, neither of which rank among my top ten reasons to spend time in the great outdoors. Still, though, it seemed as if Forsythe NWR, a.k.a. Brig, was our destination for the day. It was easily the most significant birding hotspot listed on the state rare bird alert issued just before the weekend.

Ivan and I left Hidden NJ headquarters at o'dark thirty and were at the Galloway Wawa by 7:15, having seen the aforementioned eagles just north of exit 48. The target bird for the day was the white-faced ibis, which had been reported to be at Brig a few days before, plus whatever interesting shorebirds made their appearance.

It didn't take long for us to find something interesting. Several glossy ibis were around, allowing me to say, "Ibis in the morning" like an adenoidal morning radio host. Then, however, Ivan spotted a common moorhen nearby, an unexpected bonus and a life bird for me. As I watched, it neared the birds we'd already called. "Nice!" I observed, "it's in the same field of vision with the ibis!"

"Ibis and the moorhen," Ivan observed, to the tune of the same morning radio show. Obviously it was going to be a bad pun day.

The route around the impoundment marshes gave us a nice selection of shorebirds, plus a bonus snow goose that must have missed the memo to head northward for the summer with the rest of his flock. He seemed to be trying to ingratiate himself with the larger Canada geese who apparently wanted little to do with him.

The birds on the water scattered en masse at a point, a sure sign of a predator overhead. We watched as a bald eagle, our third for the day, circled overhead and then landed in the shallow water to fish. With his ample dark leg feathers showing clearly through the viewing scope, he looked like an old man in waders, poking around.

Further marsh views brought us yellowlegs, assorted terns and a bonus blue grosbeak, but the real treat awaited us a little farther inland. The one-way driving route brings visitors past the interestingly-named Experimental Pool, a term that always puts me in the mind of three-eyed fish but describes, in fact, a very nice little marshy pool. We never seem to see anything there -- even typical stuff -- but we always make the stop, just in case.

Viewed from the observation deck, the near side of the pool was loaded with aquatic greenery, mostly blooming lilypads. One particular clump appeared to have some brown leaves stuck in the middle, but Ivan noticed some movement. Is that a....

"Black-bellied whistling duck!" he exclaimed. I trained my binoculars on it as he ran back to grab his scope for a closer look, and suddenly the brown leaf next to the duck gained a neck and a head just like the other. It wasn't a single rare sighting, but two -- a pair of black-bellied whistling ducks! These folks have ventured far away from their usual breeding homes in Texas. A pair had been sighted near the Cape May lighthouse in 2011, but we were apparently the first birders to see the species in New Jersey this year.

Quickly returning and setting up the scope, Ivan got a closer focus on the birds and confirmed it. The chestnut colored back, whitish wing stripe, black underside and red bill unquestionably qualified them as black-bellied whistling ducks. We definitely needed to let the birding community know, but photographic evidence would make the sighting that much more certain for others. Just our luck, I hadn't brought my good camera; all we had available to us was my smartphone. Perhaps if we aimed it through the scope, we'd get something good.

Well... what can I say? Given that it's a new phone, I'm still learning to use it, and the lens placement made it a bit challenging to aim through the scope's viewfinder. Added to that, the ducks were playing hide-and-seek with us by swimming behind the marsh grass. What we ended up with was a shot that could be compared unfavorably with some of the worst Loch Ness Monster shots to be published in the Weekly World News. (There's a much better representation of the species here.) Judge for yourself:

See those brownish shapes toward the middle of the photo?
Those are the black-bellied whistling ducks.

Fortunately we found the nearby Atlantic County library via GPS so Ivan could use their computer to report the sighting online quickly. Other birders then heard about our find in sufficient time to visit the Experimental Pool and make the sighting for themselves before the birds left the location. (In fact, an intrepid Hidden New Jersey reader reported seeing them just a few hours after we did.) Since then, the ducks have been sighted elsewhere in the refuge, and better photos than mine have been taken for documentation purposes. Needless to say, I'll be bringing my camera the next time we go to Brig!

An abundance of life, all in the cold

We've been really fortunate this January. Relatively mild temperatures and the lack of measurable snow has made it much easier to explore and go birding in some of the more traditionally productive January target spots. Yeah, we've had to put on a few layers, but the air has been pleasantly brisk, rather than punishingly cold.

This past weekend was the exception. Below-freezing temperatures combined with biting gusts to create some pretty harsh wind chills, despite the bright blue sky. I guess the upside is that all of the precipitation we've had to date has come when the temperatures are warmer. I can deal with the cold as long as I'm dry.

It was in that environment that we headed to the shore for a birding trek to the Brigantine Division of Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge. As longtime readers might recall, we made a few trips last year to Brig, as seasoned birders call it, for ducks and found a bonus bittern and my first bald eagle for good measure. Not bad, overall. Ivan figured we'd pick up snow geese and a few other first-of-the-year species on this jaunt.

On arrival, we found that the refuge was participating in the Federal public lands Fee Free Weekend, where National Parks and Wildlife Refuges waive their normal entry fees to encourage Americans to explore the historic and natural wonders we all own. A sizeable group of people was already in the parking lot, so we headed in the opposite direction, onto the Leeds Eco Trail. Just before we walked into the woods, I noticed what I thought was a snowy egret, standing quietly in the water near a boardwalk. Figuring it wasn't anything huge, I said nothing to Ivan. We're fortunate to see so many egrets that they've become unremarkable.

How wrong I was. After we'd made a fairly unproductive swing through the woods, Ivan spotted that same bird and identified it as a juvenile little blue heron. There went my usual rule of thumb that among the local egrets, the herons are the non-white ones. By now I'm used to this: the young often don't look a heck of a lot like their elders. I guess you could say this adolescent hadn't lost his baby feathers yet. His bill was the real giveaway, though: rather than being yellow like the great egret's, or dark like the snowy's, it was kind of grayish. That was a good lesson for me.

Our next surprise came out in the distance. Ivan noticed some activity on an osprey nesting platform and a nearby perch. We've been seeing so many unusual-for-January birds that it almost seemed plausible that the ol' fish hawks could be setting up shop a full two months before they generally return. Could it be that like so many summer bennies and shoobies, they were setting up their summer shore rental while the best locations were still available?

Or were they not osprey to begin with? Perhaps they were peregrine falcons? My optics and identification skills aren't nearly as good as Ivan's, and I wasn't going to make any pronouncements after my egret/heron miss, but I had a gut feeling. Fortunately another friendly birder was parked nearby and got his scope for a closer examination. Were the characteristic sideburns there? We took turns at viewing the best closeup we were going to get and agreed: these were most likely peregrines. A flight would give us more information to make the call, but all we'd seen so far is a short hop from the perch to the platform. Maybe one of them would entertain us, but the pair seemed more focused on eating the brunch they'd already brought in. Plenty of other raptors were more accommodating, with a few harriers patrolling the marsh in the distance.

Then we saw the granddaddy of all raptors, or, more accurately for this one, the bully kid. An immature bald eagle made its way toward our area, its plank-like wings unmistakable. Our platform diners noticed, too, and one took to the skies to chase the eagle away. For about three minutes, the two put on quite a show for us, the peregrine swooping toward the eagle to hurry the larger bird out of the area.

We all couldn't help but marvel at the sight. Forty years ago it would have been a miracle to see those two engaging with each other, and here it was, playing out in front of us, as natural as could be. It's times like that when I'm grateful for our National Wildlife Refuges and their diversity of life. When you see so many youngsters, you realize how welcoming and healthy the place is, and the presence of so many raptors indicates the robustness of that health throughout the local ecosystem. Everyone goes where the food is, and Forsythe is clearly a pretty good supermarket. That's clear even if you can't identify the birds.

Back to the Brig

Now that the weather is reliably above freezing, it was really a joy to check out Edwin Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in Brigantine this past Saturday. You'll recall that back in January/February we spent a frozen afternoon there, being dive-bombed by gulls. On an earlier trip, we'd seen an immature bald eagle and an elusive American bittern, but mostly we spent the day avoiding the bitter wind and being very cold.

Fish again?!?!?!?!?!

This time it was just plain beautiful -- sunny and relatively warm -- and it was a good day to check out all of the various environments at the refuge. If the predicted Rapture were to come, there were much worse places to spend one's final hours. It seemed that many other birders were thinking the same thing, so we basically saw where others were going... and didn't go there.

Sittin' on the dock of the bay...

On earlier visits, we hadn't spent very much time in the wooded areas or foot trails, preferring to take the marsh drive in the relative warmth of the car and then bop outside for a few minutes from time to time. This trip, we made some very productive walks about, finding a variety of songbirds and even a beautiful indigo bunting. And while we didn't see much in the way of mammals, other than people, we came upon a couple of tiny toads on the path.

The marsh drive added quite a few shorebirds to the day's take, with a fair number of black bellied plovers hanging out with the ubiquitous gulls. And I have to admit that even as a big fan of great egrets, I was getting a little weary of seeing so many standing amid the spartina.

All in all, Ivan logged over 60 birds (being lazy, I don't keep a list), not a bad take for a couple hours of observation. It's always good to get to the Jersey marshes before the insects get nasty.

Dive-bombed by gulls

Another fine portion of our jaunt to Exit Zero was a visit to the Brigantine portion of the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge. Actually, it was the second visit for me, as we'd been down there during the horrid cold snap a few weeks ago.

The refuge is within the geographic range of the famous New Jersey Pinelands and accessible from the Parkway through a secret exit in a rest stop. Taking that route, you end up on Jimmy Leeds Road, eventually to Route 9 and then the refuge itself. Personally, I find any reference to the Leeds name in South Jersey to be troubling. Leeds, after all, is the Jersey Devil's last name.

Given the amount of snow on the ground on our first visit, we didn't bother with any of the foot trails, preferring to take the drive along the marsh to see the waterfowl. The way the drive is situated makes it relatively easy to bird from the car, provided you see your desired subject in enough time to stop the vehicle and roll down the window. Most of the road is on a series of berms going through the marsh; it's just wide enough to give you room to pull over and stop and still let traffic behind you get through.

Last time we were there relatively early and were able to see some pretty neat stuff, including a bittern (my catch in the grass on the side of the road) and an immature bald eagle enjoying a mid-morning snack on the ice. This time, we were a bit later in the day, closer to dusk. While the marsh had thawed quite a bit, there didn't seem to be anyone remarkable out there. The real story came from the skies.

Or, more accurately, from about 10 feet above us. As we drove along the road, we were occasionally confronted by gulls hovering with morsels in their beaks. They were on a mission: crack open the shell or whatever the morsel was in, preferably on a hard surface. Like my car. Uh, no.

Most of the time, I'd wait them out, watching them hover until they finally dropped their stuff and dived down to collect their meals. Then I'd drive past them and they'd start the process all over again. One of the gulls, though, didn't seem to be getting the drill. He just floated there on the wind, not dropping his stuff and not letting me pass. "This one obviously took the short bus to gull school," Ivan observed. Yes, perhaps.