"When it Rains it Pours!"

 

October 22nd

          As some of you may know, we have been out of the state recently on a Wisconsin getaway.  We attended a Bar Mitzvah in Milwaukee, visited our good friend from medical school, went looking for some ancestors’ graves in Appleton and northern Wisconsin, and spent some time exploring Door County.  We returned on Thursday ready to look for some Ohio birds.

         Friday was a busy day, but we noticed that an extremely rare Scissor-tailed Flycatcher had been seen by many birders on a country road directly east of Columbus.  Also, there was a Red-necked Grebe reported at the Hoover Reservoir north of Columbus.  The University of Michigan had a bye week, but the Buckeyes were playing Iowa in Columbus, so we decided to get an early start Saturday morning to beat any game day traffic headed for Columbus.

         It was a beautiful day, and we left the house by 6:30am.  I wore my most comfortable birding pants and my lucky yellow Magee Marsh birding hat hoping that good fortune would shine upon us.  We arrived at the spot where the flycatcher had been seen last evening a little after 9:00am.  There were a number of birders scouring the area, but no one had relocated the bird.  We looked around and walked along the road to no avail.  One of the birders got a phone call with a tip that the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher had been spotted on an adjacent road.  We all took off and soon were looking at the bird perched on a close fence post.  It was a beautiful sight and an Ohio lifer for Mike and me. 

         Next, we drove about 40 minutes to the Hoover Reservoir to look for the Red-necked Grebe.  When we first arrived, we were the only birders present.  We scanned the reservoir and found many cormorants, a Pied-billed Grebe, and a Common Loon but no Red-necked Grebe.  Some other birders arrived, and we were all scanning with no success.  Then Mike noticed a “bird of interest”, but the view was obscured by tree branches.  We all walked down to the beach to get better views and confirmed that it was indeed the grebe.

         We were elated by such a successful morning.  We stopped at a Panera’s for lunch, and I started driving home.  Mike was checking his phone and discovered that a Black Scoter had been seen that morning at the Defiance Reservoir.  This was about 2:00pm and it would take us about 1 ½ hours to get there and another hour to get home from Defiance.  This was cutting it close since we had dinner plans at 6:15pm but we decided to go for it.

         We arrived at the reservoir and saw a lot of faraway Ruddy Ducks and a couple of other suspicious ducks.   We spent time trying to get closer for a better view but none of them were scoters.  There was one more duck all alone in another corner of the reservoir.  We had to walk much closer to get a good look and this turned out to be a Black Scoter. 

         “When it rains it pours” in a good kind of way.  It was an incredible day of birding.  We never thought we would see three new birds today.

(3 new species, total for the year 299)

Scissor-tailed Flycatcher (very rare)

Red-necked Grebe (rare)

Black Scoter (scarce)


                                         Scissor-tailed Flycatcher

                                          Black Scoter (female)


   

                        

Comments

  1. AnnOctober 23, 2022 at 6:06 AM

    That scissor-tailed flycatcher is a Texas bird, I wonder what brought it to Ohio?

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousOctober 23, 2022 at 4:23 PM

    Excellent!

    ReplyDelete

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