The winter of 2006-07 will go down in history as a weird one. All of December had extremely mild temperatures and this trend continued into January. Back in March of 06 when Bill, Doreene, and I gathered to create the field trip schedule, none of us guessed that it would be too warm to go gull watching along Lake Erie, but that turned out to be the case. Lake Erie was ice-free, and so the gulls were not concentrating anywhere along the shore, making it impossible to find any of the rarities we dreamed of. So, after many e-mails and a few phone calls it was decided that we would go to the Kingston area of Ross County to chase a few of the rarities that had been found on the previous weekend’s Christmas Bird Count. We would also check Deer Creek Reservoir for some rarities that had been staked out there.
The rarities we were after near Kingston were Ross’s goose and Nelson’s sharp-tailed sparrow. There had been some debate among previous observers about the identity of the Ross’s geese, so we were definitely wanting better looks at these birds. Our first pass by the farm pond where the geese had been sighted yielded only a small flock of Canada geese. Thinking the birds would return later, we went to other areas looking for birds to add to our ever-growing year lists (the nice thing about birding in early January). The best birds we managed to find were some swamp sparrows and a few northern harriers. Upon returning to the pond we found a large flock of geese containing the two Ross’s geese and four blue-phase snow geese. The Ross’s geese were feeding next to the snow geese,offering great views and excellent comparisons. No one doubted the identification of these birds after studying them for some time. Everyone’s spirits were up after finding these birds. Byron even made a bad joke about going over to Pickaway county to find some Pickaway’s geese! From here we went to the field where the Nelson’s sharp-tailed sparrow had been found. Upon arrival it started to rain heavily, the wind increased, and it felt much colder. It did not take a lot of effort to convince everyone that we should just head to Deer Creek and skip searching for an elusive sparrow in the pouring rain.
On the way to Deer Creek the skies cleared and we cruised a road that had harbored a snowy owl a few weeks ago, but had no luck with it (although a hubcap on top of a fence post fooled me momentarily). There had been a northern shrike at the Deer Creek beach for several weeks, so we decided to start there. A thorough search revealed no shrikes, so we went to the marina to try for the now resident American white pelican. We easily found this bird and scrutinization of a roosting gull flock yielded ring-billed, herring and Bonaparte’s gulls. Who needs to go to Lake Erie to find gulls! Two more attempts for the shrike were unsuccessful so we started heading back to Columbus. It turns out that one member of our group did finally see the shrike after a two hour vigil.
We stopped at Green Lawn Cemetery to look for a merlin (or two) that has decided to over winter there. The bird had been regularly reported but managed to elude our main group. A group that decided to make another trip around the cemetery did manage a glimpse of one of the birds. A small detour onto the OSU campus revealed 15 black-crowned night-herons at their usual roost along the Olentangy River. All in all it was a good day’s birding, with a total of 47 species found.
Canada goose
Snow goose (both color phases)
Ross’s goose
Mallard
Black duck
Hooded merganser
Double-crested cormorant
Great Blue heron
Black-crowned night-heron
Turkey vulture
Black vulture
Northern harrier
Cooper’s hawk
Red-tailed hawk
American kestrel
Merlin
Herring gull
Ring-billed gull
Bonaparte’s gull
Rock pigeon
Mourning dove
Red-bellied woodpecker
Downy woodpecker
Northern flicker
Northern shrike
Blue jay
American crow
Carolina chickadee
Tufted titmouse
White-breasted nuthatch
Brown creeper
Carolina wren
Golden-crowned kinglet
Eastern bluebird
American robin
Northern mockingbird
European starling
Song sparrow
Swamp sparrow
American tree sparrow
Dark-eyed junco
Northern cardinal
Common grackle
House finch
American goldfinch
House sparrow