On 16 November Craig Holt found an adult ABA Code-4 Black-tailed Gull (Larus crassirostris) at Lakeshore Park on the east side of Ashtabula power plant, Ohio. If it is accepted by the Ohio records committee it would become a first state record. The bird was reported frequently changing locations inside Ashtabula Harbor.
Black-tailed Gull is a northeast Asian species breeding in eastern China, North Korea, southeastern Siberia, the Kuril Islands, and Japan. It winters along the coast in its breeding range and south to Taiwan (ABA Checklist, Seventh Edition, Pranty et al.).
In the ABA Area, Black-tailed Gull has been recorded on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. There are inland records from Nunavut, southern Manitoba, Great Lakes Region, Iowa, Texas, and New Mexico. There is also a report of a bird from Sonora, Mexico, from June and also one from Belize. The first report of Black-tailed Gull from the ABA Area was a bird in San Diego, California, 26-28 November 1954. A good reference with many photographs written by Nick Lethaby and J. Bangma, “Identifying Black-tailed Gull in North America”, can be viewed in the 1998 issue of Birding, Birding 30: 470-483.
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