© Amar AyyashAn adult ivory gull, pure white with yellow tip on black bill, sits in the parking lot at the Lake County Fairgrounds on Jan. 3, 2018.
If anyone deserves to find an ivory gull at the Lake County Fairgrounds in Grayslake, it's Amar Ayyash.
Known throughout the nation as a gull expert and the administrator of the North American Gulls Facebook page, Ayyash of Orland Park has found plenty of rare gulls for birders to look at.
Still, Ayyash said it was pure luck that he discovered on a bitterly cold January day a very rare, small, all-white gull that flew into the parking lot and landed next to his car near several other much more common gull species called herring gulls.
Ivory gulls nest in Russia, Greenland and Canada, and, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology,
spend winter on icy waters north of Newfoundland. The gull's population is estimated to be at the most 27,000 individuals in the world, according to Birdlife International.
"It's a dream bird," said Ayyash. "It's one of the holy grails. There are not a lot of people who get the chance to find their own ivory gull in the lower 48 states."
Comment: Looking at the image above of the snowy road conditions, it seems unlikely that any vehicle was traveling at any great velocity on the day of the incident. Starlings, well-known for their speed and aerial maneuverability would (one can reasonably argue) normally easily avoid any collision as suggested in this report ( even if the vehicles were moving at normal speed) unless their ability to fly was impaired or were disoriented by some unknown environmental factor.
There have been a sizeable number of similar mysterious incidents in recent years, here's just a small sample of such reports:- Dozens of blood-soaked starlings found scattered along road in Bad Wildungen, Germany
Starlings fall to the ground along motorway near Vienna, Austria
Dozens of dead and dying starlings found on road in Wichita, Kansas
Flock of dead starlings falls out of sky in Bolton, England after 'loud bang' heard overhead
Double deja vu on December 31st? Up to 300 starlings litter roadway and fields in Seymour, Tennessee
Scientists baffled by over 100 dead starlings in Missouri
Grisly Mystery After Scores of Starlings Fall Out of the Sky and Lie Dying...in a SINGLE Front Garden