A gull flies high past Niagara Falls. (Shutterstock)

Last weekend Bill Lindley of London and James Holdsworth decided to bird for gulls at the Niagara gorge for gulls, known to be cold and windy now.

They were determined to try to see a very rare gull, reported earlier in the week. It is a European breeder and is seldom seen in North America. If the sight records are accepted, it would be the first record of a common gull inland from the east coast.

Lindley and Holdsworth set out in -10 C weather to see what the gorge held in gull species, and hopefully see the very rare gull from Europe. They first stopped at the Sir Adam Beck power generating station - about 40 metres above the water and from where a number of rare gulls have been seen in the past.

They report that there were thousands of gulls as they fed on the water below, presumably on dead fish that had died going over the falls. The two birders saw, as expected, many Herring and ring billed gulls and even a good number of Bonaparte gulls. They had great luck with both Iceland and black backed gulls, seeing 12 of each species. Often a lot of gulls have left the gorge by now because of frozen water, but since it has been relatively mild up to January they have stayed longer. Even hordes of gulls at Port Stanley have just lately left the area, reports Beth McKenzie who regularly feeds them.

The gorge birders' next stop was at the boat ramps at Queenston where they noted hundreds of Bonaparte's gulls still there, which they observed from the shoreline. With the "Bonneys,'' they found a single little gull, always a thrill they note with its solid black under wing colour. There have been young little gulls and their parents reported from Kettle Point, but the rest of their nesting sites seem to be unknown.

Up river of the boat ramps at the Whirlpool lookout they had single sightings of Glaucous and Thayer's gulls. With these were a few greater black backed gulls which apparently have decreased in numbers over the last five years.

After birding for five hours, as Lindley put it, "the cold began to sink in'' and the intrepid birders were ready to wind down their day without their rare sighting. But they did stop at the conservatory lookout about half way down the gorge.

They were rewarded with great views of the very rare common gull at last - taking their total gull species count to 10. They saw the special wingtip pattern for the gull as it soared below them for minutes. When identifying this gull you have to separate it from its North American cousin, the mew gull, which has also been seen recently at the gorge. In the winter months Lindley says, the common gull has an irregular black Z-shaped marking across its narrow bill while the Mew gull's bill is unmarked.

Both the common and Mew gull have solid black triangular wing tips. The common also has two large white oval marks which creates large white rounded marks at the wing tips while the mew gull shows a series of small white spots within the black wing tip giving it "string of pearls'' wing tip pattern.

Updates The Nature in the City series begins Tuesday with Soaring with Raptors and Steve Bucciarelli of Predator Bird Services. Accompanied by a live bird, he will share his experiences using raptors to scare off nuisance species. All sessions are at the Wolf Performance Hall Tuesdays from 7:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. They run until Feb. 23.

Tom Hayman can be reached at thomasnhayman@rogers.com