Greater Black-backed Gull at Pueblo Reservoir

Other birds I saw yesterday at the Pueblo Reservoir include one of the 2 wintering Black Phoebes and a fairly rare for winter Spotted Sandpiper. At one point the sandpiper apparently trespassed on the phoebes territory as the Black Phoebe aggressively chased it away. Both birds were foraging just downstream of the dam along with 2 Canyon Towhees and 2 Song Sparrows.

At the reservoir, in addition to a lot of waterfowl I saw 1 Lesser Black-backed Gulls and 2 Greater Black-back. In the top photo one of the Great Black-backed Gulls stands out with its distinctly dark black mantle and large size relative to the other mostly Ring-billed Gulls. This is not one of my better photos but even with a 12X digital these gulls were too distant for a good enlargement (this is where digiscoping would be good, but my equipment doesn't fit together well for digiscoping and its cost prohibitive for me to purchase specialized equipment for it).

SeEtta