January 2nd

 

January 2nd

We woke up at 6:00am and were on a quest for a very rare (for Ohio) Allen’s Hummingbird which has been lost in Cincinnati for a few weeks.  Last night, Mike said to me, “Are we crazy to do this?”  I answered, “This is probably the rarest bird in Ohio right now”.  So off we went. 

There was a little snow on the ground and sleet and rain driving there.  Just past Piqua when we thought things were clearing up, we saw three bad accidents with cars in the ditch: but the Prius putzed along just fine.  We arrived at the Saint Margaret Saint John Catholic Church in Cincinnati, and it didn’t take long to find the Allen’s Hummingbird across the street at a feeder.  We also saw Carolina Chickadees which are found in southern Ohio and a Northern Mockingbird which is more common there. 

We decided to take the long way home via Columbus because there were other rarities to find.  First, we went to the Amazon warehouse in the Groveport Warehouse District and Retention Ponds, and easily found a Brant hanging around with a group of geese.  In the same area, we saw a “blue goose” which is the dark morph of a Snow Goose.    

Finally, we stopped at the Alum Creek Dam in Delaware to look for an Eared Grebe.  It was very windy here and we thought we had found the bird, but when Mike looked at his photos on the computer, he realized it was just a Pied-billed Grebe that we had mis-ID’d.  Can’t win them all!  It was a long but successful day. (14 new species, 44 total)

Snow Goose (scarce)                             Carolina Chickadee

Brant (very rare)                                     Tufted Titmouse

Bufflehead                                             Carolina Wren

Hooded Merganser                                Northern Mockingbird

Pied-billed Grebe                                   American Robin

Allen’s Hummingbird (very rare)             Dark-eyed Junco

American Crow                                      Song Sparrow

      "blue goose" dark morph Snow Goose
                                           Brant

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