November comes to an end with some more exciting birding reports

  • By Bruce Glick
  • December 8, 2011
  • 326
                        
Gone Birding December 5, 2011 Bargain Hunter - Holmes and Wayne November comes to an end with more exciting birding reports Columnist Bruce Glick summarizes happenings in the local birding world. This week Bruce reports on a number of late November birding finds around the state. Find out more in the "Gone Birding" column. It really has been an amazing month. The Black-tailed Gull continues to draw birders from afar. The latest excitement at the Ashtabula harbor came on November 27 when a Snowy Owl showed up. By the next day there were two of these sought-after white owls of the far north. One was a beautiful adult bird, almost completely snowy white. The second owl was a younger bird with black feathers among the white. At the time I was watching the owls they appeared to be sleeping or at least resting. The adult Snowy was standing on a grassy field next to a very busy train track where train cars were constantly coming in with coal to be loaded on ships in the Ashtabula harbor. This is not surprising because previous Snowy Owls have been found near the runways and on the roofs of buildings at Burke Lakefront Airport in Cleveland. However, during the last decade we have had very few Snowy Owls in Ohio, let alone inland in the state. Hopefully one will end up in our home area since it clearly is an invasion year for Snowy Owls, meaning their food supply up north is probably quite scarce. In other birding news, a Yellow-throated Warbler is visiting feeders at a farm east of Mount Hope. Although this warbler should be in Florida or other points south, there have been at least six late fall/winter records in our area. One Yellow-throated has been back for at least two winters between Fredericksburg and Mount Hope. Up to four Glossy Ibis have been present at Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge since sometime in September. Last week at least two of them were still present, along with a lone White Ibis which had been staying in one of the closed-to-the -public areas at Ottawa. Five Great Egrets were located in the same area. For the first time locally, two Pacific Loons were found at Clear Fork Reservoir over Thanksgiving. Picking them out of the 400+ Common Loons at Clear Fork was quite a challenge. At least one of the very rare Pacifics was still observed on November 27 but couldn't be found the next day. I can't remember ever seeing 400 loons on any area lake at one time. And to give you some idea of the magnitude of the loon migration, counts have been made around our area over the last number of weeks, with totals of 100 to 600 at one site on one day. I finally got to see one of the four Eurasian Collared-Doves that have been hanging around downtown Kidron this year. They may be the only ones in the state at the moment. Several birders in the Kidron area have been keeping track of these rare birds and alerted us to the place where the doves have been roosting at night. It doesn't seem likely that they nested here but it won't be a big surprise if it happens in coming years. Good birding! Bruce Glick birderbruce@yahoo.com 330-317-7798


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