Gull Mania on the St. Clair River

It has been a good winter for viewing lots of gulls on the St. Clair River.  More recently, and especially this week, there have been thousands of gulls on the river!  With the arrival of Ring-billed Gulls and northbound gulls, the river has been littered with gulls in various locations.
Yesterday at Port Lambton on my morning watch before work, there were about 700 Ring-billed Gulls as well as a few others.
There were not as many today, but I added an Iceland.

Sarnia Bay and the north end of Corunna have been hotspots, so I headed up that way after getting off work a bit early.
It was mayhem at Guthrie Park and the outlet of Talfourd Creek off Shell Oil! My photos do not do the situation justice as I only had the Canon G16.

Thousands of Herring Gulls were on the river (mostly floating/swimming), while many Ring-billed were closer to shore.

I picked out a couple of Lesser Black-backed and a few Iceland and Glaucous.

Thayer's-type gulls have been around too.
Even the Herring X Great Black-backed was out today.  Strangely, only a couple of Great Black-backed Gulls were here during my hour stay.  There were lots of gulls on the US side as well.

One would think an Ivory Gull would be around....oh.....there was, but it was in Essex County!  It is a beauty (a photo is on eBird by James Frith).

After an hour at Guthrie Park, I headed up to Sarnia Bay.  There were lots of gulls there too including more Iceland and Glaucous, as well as many Great Black-backed.  I did not have a scope with me and many gulls were on the docks in the marina. That coupled with the fading light made for an inaccurate count.
Now is the time to get your fill of gulls!

Ice Update

Port Lambton 8 a.m. March 23, 2010

The St. Clair River is choked solid with ice, and there is still a lot to come down from Lake Huron. Ships have been getting stuck, and require ice breaker escort.

The situation is remarkably similar to the huge jam of April 1984. For almost three weeks in mid April the river was jammed with ice and ships were getting stuck. The situation was never before experienced and lessons were learned. Ships were all over the place going practically nowhere, and eventually convoys of a few ships at a time were established with ice breaker escort.

Even the gulls are ticked off. These Ring-billed Gulls were surveying the situation late this afternoon.

Ring-billed Gulls

No ducks to look at right now!

Water levels have come up quite a bit at the marinas. They will likely fluctuate as the ice comes and goes. Actually the ice was moving slowing in midriver late this afternoon.

A couple of photos from the jam of 1984 are below. Note several ships concentrated in one small area. At one point, there were 13 ships from the head of Walpole Island to Marine City, Michigan.

South end of Port Lambton April 13, 1984