1st-winter GBBG watched by Denny and Barb Martin and me from  
4:00-4:45 p.m., Mississippi River, South St. Paul, exit Bryant Ave.  
off Concord. It was in the vicinity of the sunken barge. It and about  
500 Ring-billed Gulls appeared to be spending the night there and it  
may still be present tomorrow morning. As Karl Bardon reported  
yesterday there were several thousand gulls (90% Ring-bills) on the  
river; most had left by 4:30, heading west. Also seen earlier at the  
same spot, with Paul Budde, was a 1st-winter Lesser Black-backed  
Gull, at least 3 adult and 2 1st-winter Thayer's Gulls, and 2 adult  
Glaucous Gulls. Earlier (2 p.m.), Paul and I watched an adult gull on  
the river at Hardman/Grand Ave that had a wing pattern in flight and  
at rest of a Kumlien's Iceland Gull (with dark gray apparently  
restricted to the outer 3 primaries), but on the water it was  
essentially the same size, bulk, and structure (including bill shape)  
as nearby Herring Gulls, and it had a dark eye.

White-winged Crossbills (Scott Co.): at least 20, Wilkie Unit of MN  
Valley NWR (main entrance off Co. 101 about 1/2 mi. W of hwy 169).  
The crossbills were feeding in the spruce grove 1/4 mi. E of the main  
parking area. They are hard to hear over the traffic on nearby 101. I  
found them at 9 a.m. and at least 7 were still present at 11:30.

Bruce A. Fall
Minneapolis