Fred Shaffer III is a well-known and experienced Maryland birder whose interest in gulls developed over the years he worked in a building overlooking Schoolhouse Pond, a body of water not far from an active municipal landfill and where he birded every day he could. Like many beginning birders (or indeed like those who felt the same for years afterwards, like this reviewer), he confesses that at first he just could not get interested in gulls because they were “too difficult to identify.” Close encounters with gulls around the pond, and at different times of the year, started to show Shaffer that gulls offered a world of almost infinite interest and challenge. Later, he did much of his gull watching from a kayak, and some of his sightings while paddling wowed the Mid-Atlantic birding community.
Right off, the author states clearly that he is not a professional ornithologist, but someone...
