Chasing 1000 - #999

I was scheduled to lead a birding trip down to Barnegat Lighthouse; however, today's high winds forced me to change my my plans. Brigantine (Edwin B. Forsythe NWR) was to be our backup trip if the weather was uncooperative, unless something very interesting showed up on the NJ Hot Line. Yesterday, an Ivory Gull was found flying around the harbor in Cape May, and was again located just minutes before we were set to depart this morning. The Ivory Gull is such a rare bird here in the Northeast, let alone New Jersey (4th modern NJ record), that it was an easy decision to change our plans and chase this bird. We arrived at its last reported location only to find out we had missed it by just a few minutes. After about a half hour of waiting at this location, we decided to try a second view point where it had been seen the day before. While there, we got a report that the Gull had returned to the previous location, so we drove back t the first location. The gull had only stayed around for a few minutes and was already gone by the time we arrived. Since it appeared that this bird was just moving around in the harbor, I decided we would stay here hoping it would reappear. It only took about 15 minutes before the a small almost pure white gull appeared and landed just a short distance in front of us. Ivory Gull - #999 on my Life List. After about a half hour of observing and photographing this bird from various angles, we departed content that it had alredy been a great day of Birding.


Ivory Gull


Ivory Gull in Flight