I successfully chased the KY Am Flamingo today—life bird. It’s been quite awhile since I got a new ABA bird so it was fun despite the long drive.

It’s an adult bird that is favoring its right leg but it was feeding most of the hour I spent watching it thru my scope. A couple times it rested briefly with its head curled up on its back. Appears ok. 

Not a photo op altho I got ok record digiscopes. Bird stayed on the KY shore of the Ohio R where there are a lot of tall reeds & a huge cornfield beyond w/no access but at least it’s where it can’t be harassed. Not in the least bothered by motorboats & even a tug pushing 3 barges. A Great Egret wandered over but no interaction. Flamingo is quite a bit larger than the egret—nice to see the size difference. 

An IN birder had been there most of the day hoping it would fly over to the IN side but no luck. He hadn’t seen the bird fly at all actually, just feeding back & forth along the far shore. 

If the flamingo stays where it was today, a scope makes the distant view more satisfying. There’s a boat ramp on the IN side where we viewed the bird but the owner asks that birders park along the road so that boaters can easily access the boat ramp. A bridge is out on route 156 so there’s very little traffic so parking along the shoulder is doable. My GPS managed to put me on the other side of the closed bridge so I had to detour around but luckily the bird was still there. I left around 3:30 and it was still feeding on the KY shore.

To complicate things further for anyone chasing it this weekend, there is a catfish tournament so I don’t know what that’s gonna do to the river traffic but the bird seemed to do fine with the few boats that went by this afternoon. 

Many thanks to Sandra K for sending me timely updates. Even tho I signed up for hourly Kentucky rare Bird alerts on ebird, I never received any so her help was greatly appreciated. 

As she mentioned, 2 Flamingos are near Chambersberg PA but that was over 5 hrs for me. 

I do hope these N birds make their way back S successfully. Gorgeous bird!!

Peggy Wang
Granville 

Sent from my iPhone
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