Ring-billed Gull and Bonaparte's Gull

This photo and the next one were taken yesterday, 22 October 2016, when I went on a birding day trip with a group of friends, east of Calgary. I will add our leader's eBird list of species seen, as soon as I have it.

We had beautiful weather for these few hours and we saw plenty of birds. Unfortunately, all the birds were extremely far away, as usual, so all I got were very distant shots of a mass of birds, plus photos of this Ring-billed Gull and the much smaller Bonaparte's Gull. In the breeding season, the Bonaparte's Gull has a black head, but in winter, it is white with a black dot on each cheek.

There were quite a few Geese of different species - Canada Geese, Snow Geese and Greater White-fronted Geese. All the usual ducks were to be seen at the various sloughs. Chestermere Lake was one of our stops, and also Wyndham/Carseland Reservoir where I took this photo.

This morning, I was up at an unearthly hour again, as I have a trip with various friends, this time going west of the city.