January 7th

 

January 7th

          We had an interesting excursion this afternoon.  We drove to the reservoir in Delta, Ohio which is about a half hour west of here.  There were reports of Greater White-fronted  and Cackling Geese here.  When we arrived, there were at least two hundred geese swimming in the reservoir.  We sorted through them and were able to identify at least ten Greater White-fronted Geese but no cacklers.  We also saw a pair of Common Goldeneye and three large squadrons of Sandhill Cranes flying by. Cranes make a distinctive bugling call and I heard it before I saw them.

           Next, we drove to Grand Rapids to check a few spots along the Maumee River, but we didn’t see anything exciting.  We were near Otsego when Mike saw a sign that said Weston - 7 miles.  He remembered that there is a small population of Eurasian Collared-Doves there, so we decided to go look around.  Within a few minutes, we had located a pair of doves.  The collared-dove was introduced from Europe and is rapidly expanding its territory.

          Onward to the Wood County Dump to look for gulls. We didn’t see many.  Finally, we took a quick drive around the Bowling Green golf course near the university to look for geese but didn’t find anything unusual.  (4 new species, total 69)

          Greater White-fronted Goose (scarce)

          Common Goldeneye

          Eurasian Collared-Dove (rare)

          Sandhill Crane

 
Greater White-fronted Goose

 
 
Sandhill Cranes


                                           Eurasian Collared-Doves

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