Little Gull brings me to 979

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Chase 3: 

Little Gull with Franklin's Gull on left
     The third chase was for the Little Gull. The bird was being seen periodically at White Rock Lake in Dallas. A scope would be useful, but I don't have one. Looking at ebird reports, it appeared that the bird is fairly reliable at day-break at the spillway. Low temperatures and precipitation were expected Saturday and Sunday. Saturday looked relatively better. That gave me two shots at the bird for viewing at dawn. If needed I could spend time on the banks of the lake and wait for the bird to fly or come closer. My phone started misbehaving recently, and I could not use data or gps. I struggled with the routes by putting what I see around me and the address of the final destination in the offline maps to get directions, and made it to the spillway 15-20 mins later than planned. There were other birders, most of whom I believe were targeting Western Gull. I learnt that the Little Gull was seen in the spillway little before I arrived! The other birders suggested me to wait with them as the bird could come back. Another birder helped me by scanning with his scope to spot the Little Gull and called me. I saw black cap, black patch behind the eye clearly and got good scope views of the Little Gull for bird 979. This bird is hard to get in US. It is normally seen in the great lakes or NE US coast during migration. Getting it in TX was good! I managed a poor digiscoped pic of it.

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