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by Andrew_5488 on Wed Dec 27, 2017 3:48 pm
Andrew_5488
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Location: NY
I don't know exactly if there's appropriate forum here for that.

In case you're not subscribed to allaboutbirds.org please watch this cool short video:
http://dl.allaboutbirds.org/2017-ye?utm_campaign=2017%20Year-End%20Campaign&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=59650819&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9XvJodd3jvoU4WUs-6ivKnWbrQEJDsNt7IlWrmXP2XcBc7YYvpT8eqkvRhTktiPBKIusu59MUhs3XiyfLhS641Kz9jvQ&_hsmi=59650819
 

by MND on Wed Dec 27, 2017 7:20 pm
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Location: Pennsylvania
Before I moved to the US in 2001 I only lived an hour away from Snettisham and used to visit often. I remember well the 100,000 + flocks of Knot and other waders such as Dunlin, Oystercatchers and Sanderling that roost there at high tide. The Wash is an estuary for 4 major rivers of Lincolnshire and East Anglia, the Witham, the Welland, the Nene and the Great Ouse. It was this estuary where in 1216 its reputed that King John lost the Crown Jewels when the tide swamped his baggage train whlle attempting to cross the mud flats at low tide.
 

by stevenmajor on Sun Dec 31, 2017 7:43 am
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Last March I got to see 10+ thousand seagulls do an overnighter in a hay field from an adjacent 3rd floor window. I was in Colorado, the birds were on an accent migration route between the gulf off Texas and waters of Alaska. Many completely amazing parts to this...one was how twenty minutes before landing, the birds almost completely stopped flaping their wings, got close together and somehow formed a singular massive ungelating air foil that circled the field (changing it’s shape to steer itself) while descending ever so slowly from it’s own weight. The thousands of gulls landed with the force of a kiss. After the landing, a 3-7 member bird group would arrive, fly over the mass of birds on the ground in very close proximity and “talk” to the group, then join them. The small bird groups would arrive every ten minutes from every direction in a random fashion, this continued for hours. Meanwhile...the birds on the ground were taking turns eating. A group of 100+- would break off from the group, perfectally equal-distance themselves from each other (about two feet) and move in a arch across the field pecking as they went before rejoining the group at a different location. Five or six pecking groups were always operating at the same time, coming and going as the remaining whole of the mass crept across the field. The event started in 5pm darkness and they departed before first light. A finely tuned force of nature. Spectacular.
Others should share their encounters.
 

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