Snow! goose that is...

Tweet Spent a good portion of the day at East Fork with another birder looking for the Red-necked Grebe that was photographed here yesterday.  While we spotted a grebe that looked different from the Pied and Horned Grebes that were near it, it was just too far away to make any kind of conclusions.

After leaving East Fork, I decided to check a local park that is not too far from me to see if anything good was hiding out here.  I have seen some good things here in the past.

As soon as I arrived at the park and pulled into the parking lot for the playground, I noticed a flock of Canada Geese.  I was hoping something was with them.  I soon spotted a white goose, but I passed it off as one of the domestics I have seen here before.  I got out of the car and walked down to the pond to discover that is was a Snow Goose!

The flock decided to get out of the water and graze before flying back to the pond.

A very nice end to the day!  (The forecast for tonight says snow, but with temps near 50° F when I write this at 8pm, I doubt it.)

*For local birders, the address for this park is 2238 State Route 756, Moscow Ohio, 45153 which maps to here:

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Leucistic White-breasted Nuthatch

Tweet My girlfriend and I took an afternoon walk this Thanksgiving Day at Pattison Park in Owensville, Ohio.  First birds we found was a mixed goldfinch and pine siskin flock eating sweetgum seeds.  The place was pretty birdy, so I decided to walk all the trails.

While I was talking to my girlfriend, I noticed an almost all white bird walking down the tree.  It made no sound.  It took me a little while to determine what I was looking at.  I was looking at a leucistic White-breasted Nuthatch.  I have never seen such a thing, as the bird was almost all white.  You could just see a hint of the black on top of the head and the back of the neck.  The bird appeared all white when it flew, very odd and ghost like.

It then dawned on me that I had a camera around my neck.  Soon as I raised the camera, the bird decided it didn't want any of this.  I was able to get these fast shots.

Dang stick!!

It was a cool looking bird!

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Birds are a trickling in...

Tweet With north winds being steady for about the last week, birds are definitely on the move!  I have good numbers of Pine Siskins and a Red-breasted Nuthatch at the feeders.  From reading reports, it seems that a lot of birds are staging at that imaginary line that stretches from Columbus to Dayton Ohio.  I have noticed that a lot of years, many northern birds stage at locations just to the north of here.  Maybe this year, they will continue to push south.  I am hoping for scoters, I have only White-winged Scoter on my lifelist.

Good numbers of Bonaparte's Gulls are present currently at East Fork.  I and others have been trying to search the gulls to turn up maybe a Little Gull, but with no luck.

The resident Bald Eagles have been fairly active as of recently, and I expect that they may again attempt to nest in the area.  I have been seeing two adults and two juveniles.

Here is one of the adults after flying the beach to scatter the gulls.

and shortly after the adult, one of the immatures does the same.

American Pipits have been regular at the beach at East Fork.  Here is one that was very cooperative.  They are not the easiest birds to spot.

A friend of mine got lucky and was able to photograph a Lapland Longspur in the grass on the beach the other day.  I haven't been able to find the the longspur, however I did run across a couple of Snow Buntings.  I love Snow Buntings!

They seem to love the grass seeds here.  Last year some stayed for a while here.  This one is chowing down.

Isn't it cute?

Love those white wings!

Hoping for Evening Grosbeaks soon!

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