Columnist Bruce Glick summarizes happenings in the local birding world. This week Bruce reports on yet another rare bird, this time near Cincinnati. Find out more in the "Gone Birding" column.
If you look at the drawings or photos of ducks in a field guide, you may find one of a Garganey, a very rare visitor to the United States from Europe or Asia. There have been sightings across our country and most of them have been in the spring of the year. Here is Ohio, this is only the second such record, and the first Garganey seemed to stay hidden among the marsh vegetation at a wetlands along Lake Erie. I tried to see that bird but failed to find it.
After the Bullock's Oriole, Varied Thrush and White Wagtail made headlines over the last month or so, I was not expecting another rare bird to show up so soon. Around 10 pm on Friday evening, April 29, I just happened to notice a posting on the Ohio Rare Birds site on the internet. It stated that a male Garganey had been found at the Fernald Nature Preserve near Cincinnati.
However, we had family coming from Indiana to visit on Saturday so I gave up on trying to make a quick run to Cincinnati. After lunch we took our visitors over to Berlin and Walnut Creek but then they needed to head back home. I made a quick decision to try for the Garganey, picked up two other local birders and we headed southwest, arriving at Fernald Nature Preserve around 7 pm. There were lots of cars there, from Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. More importantly, the Garganey was there - taking a short nap on the far bank of the small lake. Soon it started swimming around, at times disappearing in the vegetation, and eventually flying off with several Blue-winged Teal.
The weather was perfect and the late evening light was beautiful. The striking white streak on the face and neck of the Garganey contrasted nicely with the dark colors of the head and breast. A large big white/gray patch on the side stood out even from a distance.
There were quite a few shorebirds there, including a Stilt Sandpiper, a bird that we don't see often in the spring. Pied-billed Grebes swam and dived on the lake and Yellow-throated and Palm Warblers were singing in the trees by the parking lot.
Eventually the Garganey came back because birders were able to find it on Sunday and Monday. Dan Sanders, a Columbus birder, waited for five hours and eventually was rewarded when the bird finally showed up again.
This was the first time I've seen a Garganey here in Ohio or in the United States, but I looked in my notes to confirm that we watched "300+" at a marsh north of Manila in the Philippines in 2005. I wonder where our Ohio Garganey came from.
Good birding!
Bruce Glick
birderbruce@yahoo.com
330-317-7798
