10 a.m. I was at Sherwood Island State Park with the Western Ct Bird Club, aand about 12 observers including Larry Fischer and Angela Dimmit. We saw a raft of about 3,000 gulls, about equally mixed Herring and Ring-billed with a few Great Black-backed fairly close to shore and out further, stretching off toward Southport Beach, another very large raft of about 10,000 ; same species distribution. We also saw Red-breasted Mergansers, Scaup, Common Loons, Widgeon sp. (we tried to make him into a Eurasian but every bird seemed to have a golden glow about the head, so we gave up), Horned Grebes, Common Goldeneyes, a few Brant and Larry saw a Canvasback. We went to Compo and saw about seven Long-tailed Ducks, few gulls. At Burying Hill (in hopes of the absent Lesser Black-backed) there we also few gulls. -- Kathy Van Der Aue Southport, Connecticut Visit my Blog at http://naturaliststable.wordpress.com