2022 Ohio Birding Big Year

              Our Ohio Birding Big Year finished with a fizzle rather than a bang.     Mike and I only added two new birds in November and one in December.   We did attempt to chase a number a birds but were generally unsuccessful.   We were out of state for a week around Thanksgiving and another week around Christmas.             All and all, we were very pleased with our total number of species for the year.   We finished with 304 which exceeded our goal of 300 birds.   This put us in 4 th place for the year behind the top birder who had 314.   We saw 19 new Ohio life birds this year which are listed below.   We also saw an American Flamingo and White-cheeked Pintail in Florida as well as a Baird’s Sparrow in Alberta which were all ABA life birds.             Mike and I want to thank ev...

  December 19 th           As our Birding Big Year winds down, we have been unlucky with our recent chases until today.   A Pomarine Jaeger was first seen yesterday during the Toledo Christmas Bird Count near the Bayshore Power Plant which is only twenty minutes away from our house.   We were busy yesterday and not able to chase the jaeger.   This morning, Mike wanted to go see if it was still around.   We arrived around 8:30am and ran into another birder who had been there since dawn and had not seen the bird.   We did a pretty thorough search and could not find it either.             Naturally, about half an hour after we left someone spotted the jaeger.   I had a mah jongg game this afternoon, but Mike decided to go look again.   While playing maj, I got an urgent call from Mike saying that he had relocated the bird.   Luckily there were fiv...

  November 28 th (posted on November 29 th )           We had a rain-soaked twelve-hour drive home from the Hamptons on Sunday where the whole Gordon clan had celebrated Thanksgiving together.   Needless to say, I was less than enthused about the prospect of a long car ride to chase birds on Monday.   However, we had not seen a new bird during the month of November.   A few new birds had turned up, but we were either busy and unable to chase them or we were unsuccessful.           There were two really special gulls that had been seen on and off for several days in the Cleveland area.   Even though the laundry was calling me, I ignored that, and we left the house about 9:00am. We headed for the Edgewater Marina near downtown Cleveland to look for a Black-headed Gull.   This bird is in nonbreeding plumage, does not have a black head and really blends in with the hu...

  November 1 st           October turned out to be a very good month for us.   We saw eight new species during the month and were able to accomplish our goal of seeing over 300 species in Ohio this year.   Four of the species including Red Phalarope, Nelson’s Sparrow, Townsend’s Solitaire and Scissor-tailed Flycatcher were all Ohio life birds for us.            We traveled to the Columbus area, Dayton and Defiance to find some of these very special birds.   We were fortunate that the Red Phalarope, Townsend’s Solitaire and Franklin’s Gull were all found close to home.   Our total species for the year is 301.   We are still hoping to see some new birds in the remaining two months of our Big Year. Species seen this month: Red Phalarope (rare) Nelson’s Sparrow (scarce) Scissor-tailed Flycatcher (very rare) Red-necked Grebe (rare) Black Scoter (scarce) ...

  October 25 th           I was working in the garden all afternoon pulling out annuals and had just returned from disposing of the yard waste about 4:30pm when Mike met me at the door as I pulled into the garage.   He said, “Did you know that a Franklin’s Gull was seen this morning at Cullen Park?”   I replied, “No I did not but I don’t have time to chase it now.   You know I have dinner plans with the “Round Table” girls at 6:00pm.”            Mike was pacing around and finally said, “Well, maybe I’ll go and see if I can find the gull and if I do, I’ll call you.”   So, I jumped in the shower, got cleaned up and at 5:15pm I got the call.   Even though it was totally crazy, I hustled to Electra and got to Cullen Park at 5:40pm.   When I pulled into the parking lot and grabbed my binoculars, some woman asked me if I was there to see the gull. I said that I was...

  October 23 rd           Mike woke me up out of a dead sleep at 6:15am and said, “If you want to chase the Harris’s Sparrow, you need to get up now.”   The Harris’s Sparrow was in Dayton, and I needed to be home by 4:00pm so I got out of bed and tried to wake up.          We left about 6:45am and headed for Dayton.   Our destination was the Huffman Prairie Flying Field which is actually located within the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.   Google maps kept routing us right through the base, so we drove up to a gate.   The soldier asked if we had a military ID and we said no.   He asked for Mike’s driver’s license, filled out a report and said we couldn’t enter through the base but gave us directions for the civilian entrance to Huffman Prairie.   After driving in a few circles, we finally figured it out.          We found...

  October 22 nd           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.        ...