Today I had to drive some people over to get a helicopter ride so I took my binos and bird book. On the way to the helicopters I saw a nice lesser kestrel fly right infront of my humvee. I went around the back side of the base and near the dump again. In an open field across the street from the burn pit I counted approximately 575 black-headed gulls in various stages of moult. About half had their summer plumage. I tried but every single one of the gulls appeared to be black-headed.

While I was watching, a c-130 flying low overhead deployed flares and did an evasive maneuver. I didn't see any smoke trail of an anti-aircraft missile (looks like a tight corkscrew) so it may have been a false alarm on its automatic system.

I was watching the fences and saw a male Chaffinch and a Common Babbler. The latter bird was a lifer and it was very cooperative while I watched it from a short distance.

Birding on base doesn't usually elicit any undo attention from the MPs. I think everyone thinks I'm doing security work when I'm looking into the distance with binoculars. I'm not sure what they think when I'm looking up in a tree.

Out

Common Babbler