After a weekend of catching up on chores around the house, I spent today
birding. I started at Hoover Dam, arriving at about 11:30 am. The
Red-throated Loon was present between 11:30 am - 12:00 noon, and could
be seen close to the east shore by walking out on the path across the
dam. It was north off of a point and then moved out toward the main
body of water. I met another birder from Mount Vernon Nazarene
University there, and we met several times as we stopped at spots along
the west side of the reservoir going north and also at the Area M
boardwalk near Galena. At the boat ramp opposite the end of Maxtown
Road I found an interesting grebe that I first thought was a breeding
plumage Horned Grebe, and I told this birder that it was a breeding
plumage Horned Grebe. As I was about to leave the parking area at the
boardwalk at Area M, something was bothering me about that
identification, as I went through the field marks that I had seen. The
bird was somewhat small, but that was hard to tell because it was alone.
The neck, face and crown were black with yellowish plumes radiating from
a semicircle in back of the eye, and the top of the head was swept back
to a peak in back. It suddenly struck me that it was not a Horned
Grebe. So, I checked my field guides, National Geographic and Sibley.
I discovered to my dismay that my initial stated identification was
incorrect and that the interesting grebe at the boat ramp opposite
Maxtown Road was a breeding plumage EARED GREBE. I was expecting to see
grebes in transitional plumage between winter and breeding plumage, so
that's my excuse for my initial mistake. I first found the Eared Grebe
as it was swimming north from the picnic pavilion to the right of the
boat ramp. This was apparently the bird that Ryan Steiner saw and
reported on Saturday, 03/22/08. I didn't spend a lot of time counting
the waterfowl present at Hoover, but there were lots of waterfowl on the
reservoir today. The estimates below are not exact counts.
Common Loon 8, Pied-billed Grebe 8, Horned Grebe 4, Double-crested
Cormorant 10, about 100 Canada Goose, several hundred Ring-necked Ducks,
1 Lesser Scaup, about 50 scaup species, 6 Bufflehead, 6 Hooded
Merganser, 200 Red-breasted Merganser, 4 Ruddy Duck.
I left Hoover Reservoir at about 1:30 pm and drove west to Delaware on
Route 37. As I crossed Alum Creek Reservoir, there was a Great Egret on
the shore north of Route 37. I was headed to Killdeer Plains WA.
Jay
Jay G. Lehman
Cincinnati, OH
[log in to unmask]
______________________________________________________________________
Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society.
Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list.
Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/.
You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at:
http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS
Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]
|
