A Raptortastic day!

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While searching for shorebirds along the beach at East Fork without much success, I decided to proceed to the woods nearby. I was primarily looking for warblers and any other migrants, however the woods was dead quiet.

I Then caught a glimpse of one of the three Osprey that regularly fishes the lake. It decided to land right above my head and I was able to get this cool shot right before it decided to dive for a fish in the lake!

Osprey

I then heard the call of a Bald Eagle. I could see it flying above the trees, but it proceeded to move on. I then saw it land in a tree on a far away bank. It was an adult.

Far away Bald Eagle

The crows were harassing the eagle constantly, so the eagle took flight and landed in a tree farther away. Much to my surprise, the eagle vocalized and another adult Bald Eagle flew in from behind me and landed right next to the one above.

They proceeded to engage in activities that would suggest that they are thinking about nesting somewhere along the lake shore again this year.

I continued watching the eagles and the ospreys fish for probably about an hour. I love to watch them splash down and to see how big the fish is that they catch. They always seem to have better luck than me when fishing, but their lives depend on catching dinner.

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Some cool beach birds...

Tweet During migration, I like to hit the beach at the local reservoir in the early morning to see what birds are moving through. I go at the first hint of daylight and leave when the people start to show up.

There has been quite a few birds around the south beach at East Fork State Park. I have had all the regularly occurring terns that one would expect to see here during migration - Black, Common, Forster's, and Caspian.

Here, a Caspian Tern flies into the beach.

The Caspian decided to land in front of where I was standing.

(Looks like it has a carrot for a beak!)

Here is a Juvenile Common Tern. Notice the thinner bill, dark carpel bar and hood that is not split.

Also, been seeing a good variety of shorebirds. The beach at East Fork is about the only local spot (less than a 1 hour drive) to see shorebirds around here when water is not low.

Here is a little Semipalmated Plover. Sooo cute!

Also, there was this pair of shorebirds pictured below. The one I IDed as a Least Sandpiper immediately. The other one gave me fits. I originally IDed it as a Semipalmated Sandpiper, but the odd leg coloration gave me fits (legs should be black, not orange. I will have more of this bird and its ID in a later post.)

Least and Odd Sandpiper

Below is a juvenile Sanderling from today. The orange legged bird in the picture above was suggested by a few to be a Sanderling. The bird above is a juvenile, but as you can see, it is not a Sanderling. (Notice that the Sanderling has no hind toe, which enables it to run back and forth chasing waves on the beach.)

The Sanderling was not afraid of me at all and came to within a foot. It was comical to watch the bird poke at the sand castles that were on the beach. The bird even knocked a few down!

Sanderling poking in sand castles

There was some more cool birds in the woods that border the beach. I often hear Yellow-billed Cuckoos here, but I don't get to see them much. This bird was just sitting out in the open!

Yellow-billed Cuckoo

Also, lots of Cedar Waxwings. Always love the waxywings!

Disgruntled Cedar Waxwing

And, as I was watching the beach birds, an adult Bald Eagle flew by scattering everthing. Here is a fast, far away shot of it. It also dove and caught a fish, but I didn't get it on camera.

Bald Eagle

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Springtime Ducks

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Today was the first off day that I had in a long while that was sunny and not pouring down rain. I had to get out and do some birding. The water is still very high just about everywhere, conditions that are very favorable for good water birds.

There were many coots walking around on the grass at the beach when I arrived at the lake. There were also a good deal of people walking around with dogs, but luckily for a change they were all on leashes. The birds only seemed to pay moderate attention to them.

Scanning the large flock of coots revealed about a dozen or so Bufflehead mixed in.

Male Bufflehead

The males were displaying and chasing one another.

And the females were uninterested of course...

After watching the Buffleheads, I rescanned the flock and found my first of the year/season Blue-winged Teal!

Blue-winged Teal

One decided to start swimming towards to me!

The teal came all the way up to the shore and stared me down, as if to say "I know I am a handsome duck, so quit staring at me!"

I preceded to walk along the shore, looking for birds and rescanning the flock of coots. I noticed 3 Bald Eagles flying high above the lake. Also, my FOS Double-crested Cormorants and Bonapartes Gulls. Scoping out the lake revealed a huge raft of ducks consisting mostly of scaup and bufflehead.

A group of highschool rowers started to pile into the park, so I decided to head for the car. That is when I noticed this sad sight:

A Ring-billed Gull with a lure stuck in its neck. There really wasn't anything that I could do, as the bird spooked and starting swimming to the middle of the lake. This is why fishermen should try to prevent the snapping of line as much as possible. However, I didn't have to end the day on this sad note. As I was getting near the car, my FOS Tree Swallows came out of nowhere and were flying all around me. Spring is here!

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Spring day, winter birds

Tweet Such a beautiful day, with temps in the 50's and sunny skies, I just had to get out to do some birding. I couldn't figure out if I wanted to go to the state park or check the river. Both have water out of their banks, which usually means I see good birds. Since it was 2 in the afternoon, I decided to go to the park, since it was closer. I am glad I did!

When I first got there, I seen a couple with their scopes on something, Snow Geese! I got my scope out and put it on the birds. The couple had left as soon as they seen me coming with my scope. I wished they would have stayed, as I am pretty sure that I could see at least one Ross's Goose with the Snow Geese in the middle of the lake. The heat distortion and north winds/waves made it hard to see (I have a somewhat flimsy tripod!). The glaring afternoon sun's reflection off the water didn't help with getting pics.

Looks like a Ross's with Snow Geese (far away)

As I was looking at the Snow Geese in the scope, a Red-necked Grebe popped up in the foreground - a life bird! The bird looked as if it was going to fall over on its bill, as it looked to be leaning forward. I got good looks at it, but it was hard to keep track of, so I was unable to obtain a picture.

A male Bufflehead also flew in and landed right in front of me on the lake - love them!

Male Bufflehead

No sooner had the Bufflehead touched down, I heard a loud ruckus from the 100's of RB Gulls. They all took to the air and so did the Snow Geese. It took me a while to find out the cause of all the commotion, ah ha - an immature Bald Eagle flying over the lake.

Immature Bald Eagle

I was able to get distant pics of the Snow Geese in flight with the possible Ross's mixed in. (They still were very far away!)

⇧I was thinking the 5th goose from the top right might be a Ross's. The bottom 4th goose from the right also looks different to me. (Click on the photo to go to Flickr for a larger image.)⇧

Here⇧ , from a different angle, the 7th bird from the right looks like a Ross's to me (RB Gulls are also in the pic).

The geese put down back on the lake, but farther away. I decided to leave the lake and take a hike in the woods looking for other signs of Spring. There wasn't much going on in the woods, so I decided to swing back by the lake. The Snow Geese were gone, but a skunk decided to start towards me from up on the hill, so I decided that it was time to leave!

Mr. Skunk!

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Cold day birding

Tweet I tried to wait until it warmed up some to go out birding today. I waited until about 1:30pm to venture out. Unfortunately, it didn't warm up all that much!

First birds of the day were these Black Vultures who just flew up off of a deer carcass on the side of the road as I drove up.

Black Vultures

I decided to hit the local reservoir, East Fork. One good thing, there was nobody else out walking or fishing that I could see that would have scared off the birds. As I scanned the lake, the first bird I saw was a male Common Merganser right off the beach. I tried to take a pic, but my camera did not like the cold and the batteries died. I did not feel like walking back to the car, so I turned the camera off and put it under my shirt to warm it up.

I walked the beach and could see waterfowl off in the distance that I could not ID without my scope, so I was headed back to the car anyway. On the way to the car, I could hear Horned Larks, but I could not see them. I kept walking and three Horned Larks flew up and two landed on the sidewalk way in front of me. If they all would have landed in the grass, I would have never seen them! My camera came to life just enough to get these pics:

Blurry, far away Horned Larks

My camera starts acting wonky when it gets cold!

Horned Lark

One can really see how camouflaged they are!

After I got my scope out, I could see lots of ducks - Mallards, Black Duck, Common Goldeneye, Gadwall, Red-breasted and Hooded Mergansers, Ruddy Ducks, and Common Loons. I also spotted two Adult Bald Eagles flying high above the lake.

Nothing spectacular, but a good day nonetheless. After about an hour, I quickly became cold and decided to head home.

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More dreary day birding

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Another cloudy, chilly, misty day.

Outside in the yard this morning, I heard Pine Siskins and looked up to see 3 flying from a sweetgum tree in the neighbor's yard. FOS (First Of Season) for me. Since I had the day off and the birds seemed to be moving, I decided to head to East Fork State Park.

I arrived at about 11 am at the beach. Scanning the gulls, I was able to pick out 5 Herring Gulls. Many people would probably not think that much of five Herring Gulls, however in SW Ohio they are not often encountered in this number. One was a very dark juvenile bird, one was an adult, and the other 3 were in various stages of plumage.

Adult Herring Gull with Ring-billeds

The gulls starting vocalizing and took flight. I saw an Osprey, but they usually don't react much to them. I then looked over my head and saw this immature Bald Eagle flying in from behind.

Immature Bald Eagle

I then decided to take a walk in the woods up on the hill from the beach. The land birds were moving away from the wind. I had a mixed flock of Cedar Waxwing, many Black-throated Green Warblers, Yellow-rumped warblers, a Common Yellowthroat and one Nashville Warbler.

Moving on to the ponds, I spotted this male Wood Duck with some females. He was displaying to one.

I continued on to find my FOS White-throated Sparrows. I missed their call.

White-throated Sparrow

The Blue Jays were raising a ruckus in the trees ahead, and I later found out why. A Barred Owl took flight in front of me heading for cover from the harassing jays.

Before leaving the park, I decided to check the beach/lake to see if anything new came in. I am glad I did as I quickly spotted my FOS Bonaparte's Gull. It was constantly pruning and looked kinda rugged. Must have just migrated in.

Winter plumage Bonaparte's Gull

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Another so-so birding day in SW Ohio

Tweet Seeing all my birder friends' lists from recent trips from all over the place has got me wanting to see birds. Since my current financial situation will not allow me to travel to the places where good birds are, I can only bird locally for now. (My life list has been stuck at just under 300 for some time, partly due a lack of funds and the lack of quality bird habitat in SW Ohio - specifically referring to wetland/shorebird habitat)

I decided to stop by East Fork State Park Nov. 16th. I have had the feeling that I am overdue to get a good bird or rarity for some time now, but today was not the day. A quick scan of the beach and the lake with the scope only produced Ring-billed Gulls and 3 Herring Gulls. That was it. As I was getting ready to take off, a woman and her child walked down to the water's edge and the child threw something into the water. About 3 seconds later, I noticed a bird with white wing patches flying in fast from the right. It landed right in front of me. It was my FOS (first of season) Red-breasted Merganser (female). I don't know where the bird came from, but I can see how I missed it as it was feeding(?):

Feeding or drinking? female Red-breasted Merganser

The bird finally stopped feeding(?) and started preening.

After not seeing anything else, I decided to stop by the dam as I had to go that way anyway. Scanned the lake a second time and only came up with 2 Mallards and 6 Pied-billed Grebes. As I was getting ready to leave, a large bird flew in from over the tree line - an immature Bald Eagle that landed in a tree across the lake. At about the same time, another birder came running up to the car asking if I had seen it. I stopped to talk to him and ended up carrying on a long conversation about eagles, people we both know, and eagles. Always enjoy meeting new birders!! About 5 minutes into our conversation about eagles, another immature Bald Eagle flew in from the same direction and landed in the same tree.

I was able to get a distant shot of the eagles from across the lake. There are 2 eagles in the picture below if you look hard enough. (click on image for larger image)

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