Notes From The Field

Aurora Indiana, Oxbow, Lost Bridge

Following up on my own “Rare Bird Alert” concerning the Swallow-tailed Kite that has been seen almost every day since it was first reported was my objective today. From all reports the bird will perch and preen in the morning, and then take to the wing and go about  hunting for food. However time was of the essence as my youngest son turns 21 today and my daughter is in town for the weekend. So I picked up Jon at 6:30 am for the long drive. Which didn’t turn out a bad as I had originally thought. After you get to Lawrenceburg Indiana it’s just a few more miles on the other side. And since it seems like I live in this part of Ohio/Indiana for most of my birding days it was actually a nice drive.

From all the reports we’ve heard about the bird is that the morning is best to catch it while it perches in this dead tree, or catch it as it flies around this quiet, hilltop neighborhood. Some of the views of the surrounding countryside with it’s close proximity to the river and the valley below explains why the kite would love it here. Plenty of food and thermals to ride as they flowed up the sides of the surrounding hills that border the river.

Being a residential neighborhood we had to drive real slow along all the various roads that crisscrossed the area of a few hundred homes. We were both scanning the sky, but paying more attention to the trees for the sign of a semi-large bird. We passed the large dead tree that I thought was the one it’s been seen before perched, but no bird. We soldered on. The road forked and dead ended. Another road came in from a different direction that we took, that eventually brought us back to our original location. As we passed the dead tree again, but now from the opposite direction, I saw it.

Slowing the car down to a dead stop, Jon and myself craned our necks with our bins to our eyes to confirm the bird. We were real close to the bird. The tree was no more than 20 feet for the side of the road and we didn’t want to spook the bird as we got out of the car. So I inched forward so Jon could get out slowly, and I turned the car around and drove it down the road to pull off the side, so not spook the bird as I opened the hatch to retrieve my scope and camera.

The other 2 occasi0ons I’ve seen these birds they were in flight and it can be rather difficult to digiscope a bird in flight. So to catch one perched is a real treat. Enjoy!

As the sun was rising this was the best side to capture the bird with the sun in the best position. However as you can see this branch was covering part of it’s head. I couldn’t move to another location since it was on someones property and also we would have to get closer, which would have made the bird spook. So I stayed put and tried for some better shots as the Kite moved.

In this picture you can see how it’s been preening it’s breast feathers. He’s all fluffed up like a down pillow.

You have to admit that it is one beautiful bird. The kind of bird you’d want to come back reincarnated as.

As you can imagine I took quite a few pictures. And as much as I would like to bring them to you I feel these are the best. As the time wore on Jon and myself decided to leave. And since we were going to drive past the Oxbow, why not drive through for a quick look.

The Oxbow was full of the regular birds, and Oxbow Lake’s mudflat at the far end proved rather difficult to bush whack through the weeds and poison ivy to get to.

We faired better at Lost Bridge as small flocks of “Peeps” kept us busy for an hour or so. If I didn’t have other things to do today we would have stayed longer as hopes of more shorebirds coming in to feed was a good possibility. We left around lunch time.

Notable birds for the day include:

1. Orchard Oriole
2. Indigo Bunting
3. Song Sparrow
4. Turkey Vulture
5. Double-creasted Cormorant
6. Great Egret
7. Great Blue Heron
8. Wood Duck
9. Green Heron
10. Semipalmated sandpiper
11. Least Sandpiper
12. Spotted Sandpipper
13. Lesser Yellowleg
14. Pectoral Sandpiper
15. Osprey
16. Red-tailed hawk
17. Belted Kingfisher
18. Northern Flicker
19. Red-bellied Woodpecker
20. Northern Cardinal
21. SWALLOW-TAILED KITE
22. Horned Larks
23. Cliff Swallow
24. American Crow

 

Notes From The Field

Brookville Lake, Lost Bridge, Fernald Preserve, Smith Tract Park, & Liberty Indiana

For some reason I’m not finding the time to keep the old blog updated, and for that I apologize. Life outside of birding has been a little hectic for myself and my family so please be patient with me as I’ll try to do a better job.

This last Saturday found my good friend Gene and myself on the road for a full morning and afternoon of some long distance birding. Still wanting to hit the jackpot with shorebirds has been kind of dismal down in this part of Ohio, so we were hoping for a turn of the coin in terms of find some good shorebirds. My plan for the morning was to hit the mud flats at Brookville Lake, however Gene had been at Lost bridge the evening before  and reported some good shorebirds, including a pair of Baird’s Sandpipers.

Anyway you slice it, it’s a 45 minute drive at the least to Lost Bridge from my house, and with the lighter than average traffic it still took 45 minutes. It was still early when we arrived and upon checking out the large dirt field next to Lost Bridge for shorebirds, we were disappointed with the lack of standing water and total lack of birds. And the same could be said about Lost Bridge. Even though there was plenty of exposed sand and mug under, and extending up river and down from the bridge, there was hardly any birds.

Knowing we had a long drive to Brookville Lake we decided to leave and get a head start to the lake. The far northern end of the lake is the best spot for any shorebirds. The water is very shallow, and in years past it has been a hotspot for some great birds, except today.

While driving down to the lake we would stop and do some roadside birding and had some good luck doing that. That’s until we made our way to the lake. The water level was still too high for the smaller wading birds, so we were left with the usual Great Egrets, and Great Blue Herons.

However upon doing some scanning of the Ring-billed Gulls that were congregating I noticed a Caspian Tern had joined the gulls. A nice bird for the day count.

We searched for many a minute for anything that would excite us, but to no avail. We needed a spark to the day so we made our way to Liberty Indiana to see if we could re-locate the Eurasian-collared Doves that have been known to hang out at these grain silos in the middle of town. ECDO are becoming more and more prevalent in this part of the country, even though eBird still considers them a rarity in Ohio, but in Indiana just over the border they aren’t. Anyway it was Gene who noticed 2 doves perched on a wire next to the grain silos. getting my bins on them I noticed the squared off tail and white undertail coverts, plumber in size in relation to the Mourning Dove sitting next to it. Even though I couldn’t see the black collar, the other field marks was dead on.

After having success with finding the ECDO, we started to make our slow drive back. With frequent stops at Fernald Preserve, Smith Tract Park we had a pretty good day count for the middle of August. Some of the sparrow species that were present just weeks earlier are now gone like Henslow’s and Grasshopper Sparrows, or they’re just not showing themselves. We did have a great look at both male and female Blue Grosbeaks, which I’ve seen almost every time I’ve been out this Summer.

Saturday was a great example of being able to spot quality birds in good numbers. Granted our objective was to find shorebirds, and we did find a few, however we made the best of the situation and came away with a nice number  of birds during these dog days of Summer. They’re out there, you just have to be both diligent and patient, and you’ll see them.

Notable birds for the day include:

1. Bald Eagle
2. American Kestrel
3. Black Vulture
4. Turkey Vulture
5. Red-shouldered Hawk
6. Red-tailed Hawk
7. Osprey
8. Great Blue Heron
9. Great Egret
10. Green Heron
11. Spotted Sandpiper
12. Pectoral Sandpiper
13. Lesser Yellowleg
14. Double-crested Cormorant
15. Mute Swan
16. Eastern Bluebird
17. Eastern Kingbird
18. Northern Mockingbird
19. Tree Swallow
20. Chimney Swift
21. Cliff Swallow
22. Barn Swallow
23. Northern Rough-winged Swallow
24. Purple Martin
25. Northern Flicker
26. Blue Jay
27. House Wren
28. Carolina Wren
29. Carolina Chickadee
30. Indigo Bunting
31. Blue Grosbeak
32. White-eyed Vireo
33. Eastern Towhee
34. Canada Goose
35. Mallard
36. Wood Duck
37. Belted Kingfisher
38. Song Sparrow
39. Field Sparrow
40. Chipping Sparrow
41. House Sparrow
42. Common Yellowthroat
43. Downy Woodpecker
44. Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
45. Eastern Phoebe
46. Northern cardinal
47. American Robin
48. American Crow
49. Mourning Dove
50. Eurasian-collared Dove
51. Caspian Tern
52. Ring-billed Gull
53. Common Grackle
54. Red-winged Black Bird
55. Pigeon
56. American Goldfinch
57. Scarlet tanager
58. Gray Catbird
59. European Starling
60. Killdeer

Rare Bird Alert

This may be a tad late but for those who don’t know this, there is a Swallow-tailed Kite giving great views as it perches and preens in Aurora Indiana. And also if you didn’t know this Aurora is right across the river from where 2 were seen this time last year.

I’m hoping that it sticks around till this weekend because I will make an effort to get over there and digiscope some pictures.

Spotlight On Ohio Birds

Stilt Sandpiper (Calidris himantopus)

Family:  Scolopacidae

Order:  Charadriiformes

Description:  Length 8 1/2″ ADULT SUMMER Beautifully marked with chestnut on crown and ear coverts, broad pale supercilium, and otherwise dark-streaked face and neck. Underparts have distinct dark bars; feathers on back have dark centers. ADULT WINTER Has mainly gray upperparts and white underparts; note the pale supercilium. JUVENILE Similar to winter adult, but feathers on back have cleaner-looking pale margins.

Voice:  Call a soft “jeew.”

Habitat:  Very common locally high Arctic breeding species, from northern Alaska to Hudson Bay. Common on Atlantic coast during fall migration. Winters mainly in Central and South America, but small numbers remain on Gulf coast.

Range:

FYI’s: The main southward migration route of the Stilt Sandpiper passes through the middle of the continent, west of the Mississippi River. From here, in fall the species migrates over water to the Caribbean or northern South America, where many birds interrupt their migration to molt flight feathers before continuing to winter haunts in inland central South America.

A Birder’s Haiku

Dedicated to the birder, as we start our week.

Wet leaves shine under

a dripping Oak canopy

at dusk, bird song stills

Notes From The Field

Lost Bridge, Oxbow, Shaker Trace Wetlands, & Cincinnati Zoo Wetlands

As with all skills you learn the more you use these skills the better you’re going to become. And if you don’t use these skills don’t be surprised that sometimes even the simplest task becomes difficult. The same can be said about birding. With everything going on right now the chance to go birding has been rather elusive.

Spring was rather a bust when it comes to shorebirds in this part of Ohio, so Jon and myself were due for an all day shorebird hunt. And it started this last Wednesday when Jon called and wanted to see if I’d join him at the Cincinnati Zoo Wetlands. Migration is in full swing and with nothing better to do that evening I said yes.

Having been there a number of times I’ve usually birded from the side of the road well off the edge so drivers can see me. However with all the vegetation growth it’s no longer feasible to see the water and the mudflats that border the edge. So we walked to higher ground for a better look.

As you can see from these 2 pictures that it’s pretty flat and this rise in the ground offers a look down onto the only body of water with sizable mudflats. And the birds were plentiful.

There were plenty of shorebirds as we started to scan from our high ground. Killdeers were by far the most numerous shorebird, followed by Least Sandpipers. Both Semipalmated Plovers and Sandpipers were present along with Solitary and Pectoral Sandpipers. Throw in a few Lesser Yellowlegs and you get the picture of what we were seeing.

Today however we decided to do a Western Hamilton county trip and hit some of the best spots recently for shorebirds. The funny thing was that no one told the shorebirds to be there as well.

Starting at Lost Bridge and areas in the same vicinity we were pretty much skunked. There was a Lesser Yellowleg here. A Least Sandpiper there. But nothing you could sink your teeth into. The same area that was giving us Buff-breasted and Upland Sandpipers was empty. So we moved to another location, which ended with the same result. So we drove from Lost Bridge, to the Oxbow, then to Shaker Trace Wetlands, then to Listermann’s Brewery for a beer and to come up with a better strategy.

After our thirsts were quenched, we decided to head over to Jon’s house where he would drive his truck over to the Zoo Wetlands again, and I would follow. Even though our thirsts were satisfied, our unquenchable desire for some shorebirds was not. And this time we were coming at the pond from a different angle so we could get the best views possible. And we did.

Some pretty nice close-up looks at a least Sandpiper.

Solitary Sandpiper

Lesser Yellowleg

Even though it wasn’t a very hot day, the humidity was wearing us down as the clock approached 5 o’clock. There still will be plenty of opportunities to get out into the field during fall migration, and hopefully it will be sooner than later.

Notable birds seen include:

1. Red-headed Woodpecker
2. Ruby-throated Hummingbird
3. Double-creasted Cormorant
4. Great Egret
5. Great Blue Heron
6. Pectoral Sandpiper
7. Least Sandpiper
8. Semipalmated Sandpiper
9. Spotted Sandpiper
10. Killdeer
11. Semipalmated Plover
12. Solitary Sandpiper
13. Green Heron
14. Turky Vulture
15. Red-tailed Hawk
16. Red-shouldered Hawk
17. American Goldfinch
18. Song Sparrow
19. Field Sparrow
20. Indigo Bunting
21. Northern Cardinal
22. American Robin
23. Brown-headed Cowbird
24. Common Grackle
25. Red-winged Blackbird
26. Northern Mockingbird
27. Eastern Towhee
28. Common Yellowthroat
29. Yellow Warbler
30. Northern Flicker
31. Wood Ducks
32. Mallard
33. Barn Swallow
34. Bank Swallow
35. Cliff Swallow
36. Purple Martin
37. Cedar Waxwing
38. Eastern meadowlark
39. Dickcissel
40. Common Crow
41. Mourning Dove
42. White-breasted Nuthatch
43. Carolina Chickadee
44. Horned Lark
45. Eastern Kingbird
46. Belted Kingfisher
47. Gray Catbird
48. Yellow-billed Cuckoo
49. House Wren
50. Carolina Wren