Twitch: ROSS’S GULL

Chicago, IL

Saturday 11 March 2023 38 °F

Upon waking up at home on this last saturday of spring break, I found my phone bombarded with rare bird alerts about a mega-rare Ross’s Gull, an Arctic species the hasn’t sighted in Illinois since 1978. Since the bird was reported at Rainbow Beach Park, a familiar place a drivable distance away before I had to fly back to NYC, I threw on clothes, drove my mom to work battling St. Patrick’s day traffic, and soon enough arrived at Rainbow Beach.

My hopes were high when I saw the dozens of birders lined up along the beach:

THERE IT WAS!

WOW! A truly high-arctic species that I was absolutely not expecting to see while home in Chicago, but perfect proof that I should indeed bring my camera just in case!

Here it is juxtaposed with a RING-BILLED GULL:

Distant RED-BREASTED MERGANSER:

REDHEAD:

And back to the Ross’s:

It was great to see its beautiful wings in flight:

After admiring the gull for a long time as well as catching up with several birders like Simon, Peter, Henry M, Owen, and Jacob, I headed over to Park 566 to search for a Western Meadowlark and all 3 Scoter species that had been seen from there recently. There were some distant WHITE-WINGED SCOTERS in Indiana waters:

Here pictured with a single drake SURF SCOTER, the second bird from the right:

And a female BLACK SCOTER, completing the Scoter trifecta — the first time I have had all three in one day in Illinois/Indiana waters!

There were a few HORNED GREBES in the slip, apparently they’ve been numerous along the lakefront this winter:

What an amazing day of birding! Bird-of-the-day obviously goes to the Ross’ Gull with runners-up to the three Scoter species. But now, here is the real reason I came home from break — Poppy!!!