Yesterday, I returned to work, on the midnight shift,  feeling kind of blue about the whole heart problems.   Following my shift, I woke up Saturday at 1:10pm, couldn’t decide whether I needed more sleep or not.  So I decided to killed a few minutes by checking my Ontbird email.  There was a posting for an Ivory Gull but not recognizing the name I countinued reading down the page.   Checking back on the posting for the Gull, figuring it would be some obscure  part of Ontario, you can imagine my surprise when I saw that someone had posted it for Mike Runtz and it was being seen at the moment at the headpond of the Madawaska River.

I think it took me all of 8 minutes to get in the car, camera and binoculars in hand.  Twenty-eight minutes and change, to drive 59kms. Yup, I think I went faster than the posted speeds.

My GPS took me to the  exact spot and I saw  familiar faces, my first words were “is it still here”.

The rest is history, a bird I’ve chased over the past 10 winters, up and down the eastern seaboard was finally in the books.  Bird 631 of my quest to “GET THEM ALL” and a new bird for my Ottawa list.  This species has only been seen locally in the area back in 2001 (Amherst) and 1995 (Lake Dore), thanks Bruce.  It had never been seen in the Ottawa 50k….

The photo is at extreme distance but its a keeper for sure.  I would have loved to stay and try for more images but I did have to get to work.  Work always does get in the way.  I’m going to have to do something about that, soon.

Thanks to Mike Runtz, a great find.

Ciao for now…..My spirits are a bit more Ivory, today