Gull-Billed Tern

I had an interesting experience at the Salton Sea on May 27. I saw one bird I'd never seen before, the black-tailed gnatcatcher; and I saw a number of birds I'd only seen once before and in several cases had only gotten poor photographs previously: the verdin, previously at the Salton Sea; the western kingbird, previously at Corn Springs; the ladder-backed woodpecker, previously at Guadalupe Mountains National Park in Texas; the gull-billed tern, previously in Portugal; and the common ground dove, this subspecies previously at the Salton Sea (and a different subspecies in Jamaica). 

The gull-billed tern was particularly curious because there were several of them flying along the edges of the big field at the Sonny Bono Salton Sea NWR on Sinclair Road and they were hovering, then dropping into heavy dead grass and then emerging again. When we saw one in Tagus Estuary of western Portugal I only got two poor photos and it was outside of its normal range. I was thinking that the gull-billed tern was also outside its normal range in California, but it apparently has a breeding history around the Salton Sea. 

Some photos of the gull-billed terns near the Salton Sea follow:

Hovering