Friday 29 February 2008

Going Ivory gull hunting.

Ok. Let's face it. Ivory Gulls are one of the most fiendish birds to fly over this earth.  They are ridiculously small, impossible to see and love to play hide and seek.  3 friends and I drove overnight on Tues to look for one. It's about 10 hours, packed into a little tiny rental car, from home here in WI to Pierre SD where the bird was hanging out.  We spent all day Wed (10:00am til sunset) looking for the bird without success. Then we spent all day Thurs (sunrise to sunset) still without any luck.   It was a long trip for not finding THE bird. Although, I added 5 lifers and 17 year birds.  
My lifers were:
SNOWY OWL
Glaucous Gull
Ross's Goose
Sharp-tailed Grouse 
Gr Prairie Chicken

So the trip was not a complete loss. 
I now hate Ivory Gulls though and will hate them more if the bird is refound! 

3 comments:

Zac Hinchcliffe said...

Surely you cannot be serious that you 'hate' Ivory Gull - they are far to stunning to hate lol

I suppose its more to do with rarity value over here...

Chris W said...

lol, actually, it's joke going around among me and some friends. a few weeks ago, one of us went after the bird and missed it by 2 hours. i missed by a day.
the bird hasn't been seen since then though.

you're right though, they are stunning birds and they're very rare here in the USA. I believe they're ABA code 5 which is one level under probable extinct.

Chris W said...
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