An early winter?

Tweet It is early fall and the temperatures are still pretty mild.  There has been little change in the composition of bird species on the beach at East Fork.  Vultures have temporarily taken up residence on the beach in the morning.  This may have something to do with the lack of shorebirds, but I doubt it.

The turkey vultures were protecting their garbage can from me.  Something must have been tasty in there!

As I got closer, one of them spread their wings and started hissing.

 Least and semipalmated sandpipers along with five sanderlings have been on the beach for a while.  Here are three of the sanderlings flying.

I have been seeing both osprey and bald eagles fishing the lake, but they have not been very cooperative for me photo wise.  This immature bald eagle was perched right above my head for a while.  A person walked between me and this bird, causing it to fly.  

But the real surprise came today.  While I was talking with another birder, waiting for an osprey, eagle, or something good to come by, I noticed a small bird flying above that landed in the brushy weeds in front of us.  I thought I could see white outer tail feathers at first, but I couldn't tell.  At first, I heard no sounds other than a chip.  The bird stayed in the thick weeds for about an hour.  I could see orange on the face of the bird, so I got excited.  This is about the time of year that maybe my lifer LeConte's Sparrow would come through.  I could only see the head mostly.  This was about as good as it got for a long while:

The bird's head is in the center.  From this view, it was hard to tell what it was.  I was still hoping that it would show enough for an ID of LeConte's Sparrow.

Another birder and I watched the bird for a while.  I was going to leave the bird unIDed and hope to see if the other birder got better pics than I.  I decided to stick around and check the beach just one more time before I left.  The other birder had done left.  When I came back to the spot the bird was earlier, a man with a dog was very near here.  The bird flew up and landed right in front of me.  

What the heck?  I thought.  It is 81° and not even October yet.  Can't be.

and then, the bird flew a bit and landed on a stick.

It has to be.  I can see the bird's namesake! 

I then said to myself:  If it would just fly to a rock in the open by the water, I could confirm my ID.  And, it wasn't long after, the bird did just that!

Yep!  Look at that long spur!  Definitely a Lapland Longspur!!!  But what is one doing down here so early?  Local records show that this bird is about 2-3 weeks early.  Is this a sign of an early winter?  Don't know.  Maybe it will be a good year for what I consider to be snowbirds (Snow buntings and Lapland Longspurs)?

Very nice colors in the sun!  

For local birders hoping to find this bird, it has been hanging in the patch of vegetation on the left hand side of the beach, the same spot that the upland sandpiper was.  

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Merlin!

Tweet A Merlin has once again showed up this Sept. at East Fork.  Even in the same tree I seen one in last year.  Wonder if it is the same bird?

This bird was spotted just before it got too dark to see.  For birders that are local, the bird was seen on the south side of the park in the large dead tree between the old ranger station parking lot and the new ranger/watercraft building.  This is the tree at the 90° bend on Williamsburg-Bantam.

Here is a map:

https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit?hl=en&mid=z1ftRxoyn0Wk.kdZbOzHe6UCk
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A strange TERN of events...

Tweet A Little Gull was reported by another birder yesterday morning at East Fork State Park Beach.  I had to work, so I couldn't get there until evening.  I did not find a Little Gull, but did find the winter plumage Forster's Tern that has been there since at least last Thursday.

This morning (Sunday), I was off work, so I arrived at about 9am at the beach at East Fork.  There were already about 5 or so birders with scopes looking at a bird.  I was hoping that it was a Little Gull, as I have only seen one and it was far away.  This bird was resting on the sand.  Since I have had my scope stolen, I had only binos and my camera.  A couple of birders asked if I would like to see the Little Gull, so I of course said yes.  The only thing is, the bird I was looking at was not a Little Gull.  In fact, it wasn't a gull at all.
They had a few field guides opened to Little Gull on an old water fountain.  I began to suggest other possibilities that the bird might be.  I turned the guide to terns and offered just a little of my opinions.  I was in the minority slightly at first.  I could tell that the birders that were convinced that it was indeed a Little Gull were getting a little uneasy and upset.  I then started to talk to the other birders that were there.  I recognized  one of the birders.  I began to discuss why I felt the bird was what it was and he began to see why I came to the conclusion that the bird was a Forster' Tern in winter plumage.  Another birder also agreed that it was indeed a Forster's Tern.  The couple that never would disclose their name to me left as the talk of the bird being a tern heated up.  Here is the bird that was causing all this confusion:

While I don't have a picture of a Little Gull, there was a Bonaparte's Gull nearby.  I told them that the Little Gull would be more similar to the Bonaparte's than to this bird.  This is the BONAPARTE'S that was nearby.

There are some "Jizz" differences here.  I often suggest to people that they just zoom out or just observe the bird through their binos only for a while.  The couple that insisted that the bird was a Little Gull was so stuck on minor details that they did not look at the overall bird.  The tail I remember was a sticking point.  They did not see the streamers that the bird would have in breeding plumage.  This alone would not be enough to make it not a tern.  White feathers contain no melanin, so they are weak.  This means that the feathers most likely are worn down by now, giving the bird a short tailed look.  

I do not know if the bird above (tern) is the bird the original birder misIDed or not.  I do not recognize the name.  

After everyone but me and one other birder left, things got real interesting.  I started just talking with the other birder when I noticed a long necked shorebird just beyond the gulls.  This little spot on the corner of the beach has been very productive in the past.  I told the other birder I was with that I think I see something of interest over there.  We decided to get a little closer and check it out.  I originally thought that the bird may be a Pectoral Sandpiper, but it just looked too big and long necked.  As we got closer, I said to him "that's an UPLAND SANDPIPER!"  That would be a life bird for me.  

We quickly noted that the bird had an injured wing, as it was dragging it.  The bird attempted to swim away like a duck would swim, but turned around and went into the deep vegetation.  We were able to get a few photos of the bird.  Very sad to see such a nice looking bird in such situation.  Just hope it stays away from the off leash dogs.

Here are the photos that I was able to obtain.  The bird was kinda of skittish, so we kept our distance.  Being injured, I didn't want to stress the bird anymore than it already was. 

When I got home, I checked the Birding Ohio Facebook Group and found that the local Wild Birds Unlimited store had received a call about an injured Upland Sandpiper in Bethel, Ohio.  This is very close to where this bird is.  I talked to the staff person who took the call, a birder friend, who told me that the bird was found in a yard yesterday and that the bird was sent to rehabbers.  Whether this is a different bird or not I do not know.  For now, I can only assume that it is not the same bird.  The bird headed deep into the vegetation, and despite my looking for it, I could not re-find it.  

A very strange tern of events indeed...

Update: This evening (Sept. 13th), I was at East Fork and Ginny Fantetti and Rob Edelen showed up. I have known Ginny for a while and know that she is familiar with rehabbing and the methods used from her work with Raptor, Inc. She came up with a plan and we successfully executed it in short order and the bird was caught without incident. The bird appeared to have a broken wing. It is now in the process of being turned over to the rehabber.  

Update #2 from Ginny Fantetti: "The sandpiper was delivered to Back to the Wild rehabilitation center in Castalia, OH yesterday (an all-day road trip). They have the resources and facilities to get proper care for it and will be able to keep it as a permanent educational display bird if it can't be released. I'm glad it didn't come to an ugly end at the hands of one of the many off-leash dogs or stray cats at the beach at East Fork."

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Glad the story came to a good ending.  Also glad it is over!

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