Before School Chase

Hey guys,
Last night my friend Ben (@benthehen) found a Little Gull at Saganashkee Slough! I talked to my mom about going before school and she said that she didn't know if she wanted to get up super early to go look. This morning, we got up at about 6 and left! We got there when it was still dark and could see 1,500+ gull on the slough. I pulled a Common Tern which gave me a scare as an Arctic. That was my 270th species for Cook County this year! I made sure it wasn't an Arctic, and kept searching for the Little Gull. After a couple minutes, I found a tiny gull erratically flying around with a bold, black "M" on the wings! That was my 540th world bird and my 320th Illinois lifer. Then, I was trying to find it again when I saw another gull flying along the NE corner. The first thing that stood out to me was the "M" on the wings. I thought it was the Little Gull, but as it came closer I realized it was the size of the Ring-billed Gulls and it had a black collar! Ut was a Black-legged Kittiwake! Unbelievable! I put the birds out on the RBA group chats and soon enough 20+ people were sitting with scopes and cameras looking for the gulls. The Kittiwake seems to have flown off as well as the Common Tern, but many people have gotten to see the Little Gull. We drove over to the Central lot where we saw the Little Gull again, the pair of Red-necked Grebes, a Bunch of Bonaparte's Gulls and a few Bufflehead. Then we had to leave and make the drive through traffic home. Honestly this might've been top 5 birding experiences in Illinois for me!

EDIT I actually came to the determination today that the bird I saw was the Little Gull and not a Kittiwake. It just looked much bigger for some reason. Still an awesome bird!

That's all for now and stay safe,
Simon

Posted on 28 de outubro de 2020, 02:45 PM by