There's no such thing as baygulls

The jitney ride home this morning jumpstarted my birdwatching day. Nearing Manorville I was able to spot a speedy little Peregrine falcon--spotting on the belly + dark malar stripe-- zip around a couple of trees before dropping below the horizon. Then, passing through the Napeague stretch and almost into Montauk Town a gorgeous Great Egret was flying in the direction of Montauk Elementary School (right by my house.) After getting home I walked down to the bay to do some late afternoon bird watching. Today it seemed that all I could spot were gulls so, I decided that this was the afternoon I would start learning my gulls. I already knew the Ring-Billed gull with the black circle around the edge of it's beak and when it's not breeding it has a sort of dark speckled/streaked black area on the top of its head. The following 25 minutes were pretty birdless and so I found myself deciding to turn in when I saw through my binoculars one gull with a black head. Flipping through the field guide I thought it would be a Laughing Gull but couldn't determine that until I saw the top of i's wings. Waiting a little longer it finally took off and it was a Bonaparte's Gull! The difference between the Laughing and the Bonaparte is best recognized in the wings; the Laughing Gull has grey wings that fade to black towards the primaries while the Bonaparte's wings are white toward the tip but the tips are all black and it has a grey back. I remember seeing two a few weeks back when we went birding with the SOFO group so it wasn't a completely new bird for me to see. After seeing the oh so common Herring Gull I decided it was time to call it a day since the sun was starting to set. Today wasn't the best day of birding but definitely a start for getting better at identifying gulls!