An American Avocet was discovered today at the ABX Air wastewater treatment
plant on Jenkins Road south of Wilmington.  See map
here<http://local.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=104411027825639848188.000438de0743df8c2e384&z=19&om=1>.
 The bird was discovered by Eric Davenport of ABX's environmental compliance
department.  Eric called Bob Thobaben, who called me.  I got there to find
Bob, Eric, and Tanya Carey, supervisor of environmental compliance for ABX
air watching the bird in the easternmost of the settling ponds.  We spent
the better part of an hour inching up on the bird in order to get some good
pictures of it.

The bird was clearly an American Avocet.  The strongly recurved bill
indicated that it was a female.  The head and neck were pearly gray to
white, evidence that the molt to winter plumage was well underway.  We could
also see a good deal of brown in the coverts.  My view was that these were
retained juvenal feathers, indicating that we were dealing with a hatch year
bird in the preformative molt.  Bob held instead that the brown feathers
were worn, weathered and bleached adult coverts, indicating that the bird
was at least one year old and was in the midst of the prebasic molt.  In a
crucial observation of the outstretched wing, Bob noted that all the
primaries were entirely black.  Thus the bird could not have been molting
from juvenal plumage.  Avocets retain their juvenal primaries, which are
strongly marked with white tips on the inner four or five primaries.

To sum up, the bird was a female in the prebasic molt, at least one year
old.  Larry Gara was able to confirm these findings this afternoon.  The
last records of American Avocet in this area were eight birds on 20 Oct 2001
and eight on 15 Aug 2005 at the Caesar Creek beach.  Those were all adult
birds.  This is the first sighting for me in Clinton County.

I managed to get some pretty decent pictures, which I will post on my blog
sometime tomorrow.  (See the URL below.)  However, none of them shows the
outstretched wing.  Thus, without Bob's observation of all black primaries,
we would not be able to accurately age this bird.  This is worthy of note in
view of some recent threads on other mailing lists concerning the use and
abuse of photos.  This case shows that photos are not the be all and end
all.  Accurate observations and good notes remain as important today as in
the pre-digital world.

We also had a chance to discuss the problems of access with Tanya.  The
security concerns that put this site off limits to birders in 2003 have
relaxed somewhat.  Tanya says that she sees no difficulty with birders
visiting the treatment plant with prior notice.  Call Tanya or Eric at (937)
366-3188 ahead of time so they can notify security to expect you.
Naturally, you should allow enough time for this to happen.  The day before
would be ideal.

When visiting the treatment plant, park across Jenkins Road in the gated
driveway.  Stay out of the fenced-in area.  This is no hardship.  I urge
everyone to abide by these simple procedures to assure continued access to
this highly productive site.

Cheers,

Bob

--
Robert D Powell
Wilmington, OH, USA
[log in to unmask]
http://rdp1710.wordpress.com

Nulla dies sine linea

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