A very rare male Ruff visits the Killbuck Marsh Wildlife Area on April, 7, 2014
By Bruce Glick
April 8, 2014
382
A very rare male Ruff visits the Killbuck Marsh Wildlife Area on April 7, 2014
Columnist Bruce Glick summarizes happenings in the local birding world. This week Bruce reports on the super-rare Ruff that recently showed up near Shreve. Read more about it in the "Gone Birding" column.
On my desk is a copy of The Bobolink, Vol. 17, Number 1, Spring 2013. On the cover is a great photo by Dane Adams of the super-rare Ruff that stayed at the Shreve Fish Pond from April 1-6, 2013. During that time the bird's plumage was changing, adding black feathers on its neck and chest. This most likely meant that the bird was a male.
The Funk Bottoms and Killbuck Marsh Wildlife Areas have a history of hosting these sought-after shorebirds. I remember at least twice watching what we were sure were female Ruffs at Funk. This was 20-30 years ago and it was the Vernon Kline family that found the birds and figured out what we were seeing. It wasn't easy since finding a Ruff at that time was basically unheard of. Add in the fact that a female Ruff is not as distinctive as a male, and not everyone was sure about the identification. That has changed.
When a male Ruff showed up last week at the same Shreve Fish Pond, it made three years in row that at least one Ruff has been discovered at or near the Killbuck Marsh Wildlife Area. My first thought when Wooster's top-notch birder, Su Snyder sent me her photo of last week's Ruff, was "wouldn't it be great if this was the same bird that visited last April! Of course we'll never know but it certainly is possible. Just think about the Ruby-throated Hummingbirds that have been spending the winter in Mexico and are heading back north. We know that they may show up outside our windows where we haven't yet hung the hummer feeder. They will fly around the exact spot where the feeder was last year, which will motivate us to quickly clean the feeder and get it out there. Might not a Ruff stop over again at the location where it spent six days a year ago?
Recently I have been working on updating a database for migration dates of birds in the Bobolink Area. For years I've tried to keep track of the earliest arrivals and latest departures in both spring and fall, for all species that migrate through the area. Most of the data comes from the 17 years of reports in The Bobolink, plus some personal records from area birders. Another piece of this puzzle is to add a short summary of the peak migration dates for all of these same birds. This information would be nice to have alongside the newly published "Birds of the Bobolink Area". Now that I've mentioned it in print, hopefully that will push the project along.
Back to the Ruff, as far as I know it was only seen on April 7th this year, although that could change since there are a lot of places that the bird could have moved to without leaving the area.
In an upcoming column I will be taking a look at the newly published Second Edition of the Sibley Guide to Birds. In looking up Ruff in my new copy I found the following information (not in the first edition): "The color of male breeding plumage matches status. Males with black or brown ruffs defend small territories at a lek (place where a number of males display to attract females). Satellite males (about 16% of the population) have white ruffs and average slightly smaller, and remain outside of the lek. Cryptic males (1%) are close to females in appearance and size (smaller), and this allows them to move freely within the lek". (thank you David Sibley).
Good birding!
Bruce Glick
birderbruce@yahoo.com
330-317-7798
