It’s Albatrossity Monday! Followed by a lovely 4-part series from Mike S, filled with birds, plants, flowers, and scenery.
We have 2 more weeks of posts in the queue, and then we’re out, so if you’ve been thinking about sending something in, now is the time to do it! :-)
Albatrossity
Something a little different for today, which necessitates a longer preamble.
I don’t usually chase rare birds, even if they are relatively close. I’m more of a photographer than a birder these days. It might be more accurate to say that I chase pictures, so this is a tale of a picture chase that happened on Monday Feb 3, 2025.
On Friday the week before, a birder friend of mine reported that there was an adult Ross’s Gull (Rhodostethia rosea) on a frozen playa south of Dodge City KS, which is about 4 hours from my home. To understand how bizarre this sighting was, you have to be a birder, but I can give you some background that may help.
This is a species that breeds in the high Arctic in the summer, and spends its winters on pack ice in the Bering Sea and Arctic Ocean The range map here shows that quite graphically (blue is winter range, red is summer range, the tiny “x” is this bird’s location in the middle of the continent). In other words, these birds are above or adjacent to the Arctic Circle year-round. This one was clearly way out of range. These birds do wander south occasionally, and in fact there is one other record for this species in Kansas, which showed up for a few hours a few miles from my home here in Manhattan KS in Jan 2009. Very few Kansas birders got to see that one; a crowd of out-of-town folks failed to find it the next day. I was one of those lucky few, and my pictures helped document the bird and add it to the official list of birds seen in Kansas.
But I had better photographic equipment now, and I wanted better pictures. I also thought a road trip would be good, since I would be off the grid and away from the news for a while. So, once it was clear that the bird was sticking around for a while (many birders, both from KS and from out-of-state, viewed it over the weekend), I headed west early Monday morning.
When I arrived, it was sunny, breezy, and warm (75 °F). There were 5 people with binoculars and scopes standing at the side of the road near the playa. That’s always a good sign. I asked if the bird was still there, and the reply was yes, but not right now. It had flown away to the west a few minutes earlier, but they all expected it to return. And indeed, after a few minutes of chatting with these folks (a couple from Texas, one from Kansas, one from Chicago, and one other), the bird came winging in from the east. Click here for larger image.
On The Road – Albatrossity – On the road to Dodge CityPost + Comments (4)
