Ross's Gull Photos

June 1980, Churchill, Manitoba

The following photographs are all © 1998, 1980 by Dick Hoffman. They were taken with a 300mm lens and a Minolta SRT101 camera. Dick and Jean Hoffman, Jim Hoffman and Bill and Nancy Klamm made a trip to Churchill together in June of 1980. While still in Winnipeg we learned from Norm Chesterfield of Ontario that he had just seen Ross's Gull in Churchill, but it would be several days before we arrived in the morning on the train. We were lucky that Bonnie Chartier was free that day (remember this was in the old days) and we went out with her along with Peggy and Fritz. We saw our first "pink ones" that day and in the following days realized the birds were nest-building. This was the beginning of a long run of Ross's Gull residence in Churchill, but we now read that they have become rather difficult to see there.
We hope these views will complement the recent sighting of a bird at Headlands Beach State Park in Ohio. The slides were scanned to Photo CD and cropped for this page.
Ross's Gull on the ground
We first saw a bird on the ground near the road. Here is a nice breeding plumage adult looking for nesting material. The pink color was very difficult to capture in photographs but was quite obvious in person. 		carrying stalk
This bird is carrying nesting material, probably some plant stalk.
in flight
Another flight shot.
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