The weather looked snowy today.  I started rather late and decided to
work my way north continuing as far as the weather would permit.  I
found two Horned Grebes at Caesar Creek from the end of Harveysburg
Road.  These are probably the same birds that Bob Foppe reported earlier
this week.  There were several quite distant scaup and two Bufflehead.
I added Red-shouldered Hawk along the road back toward Rt. 73 from the
north boat ramp that is north of the beach.  Again, I found no Fox
Sparrows at the feeders at Spring Valley WA.  At Roxanna gravel pits, I
found five Common Mergansers, one male and the rest females or immature
birds.  I headed north and visited Deer Creek SP.  I found the Northern
Shrike at 2:15 near the beach north of the dam.  The shrike was east of
the intersection just before the beach parking lot.  It was still there
at about 2:30 pm.  Thanks to John Habig who reported it first this year
through Bill Whan.  I decided to try to get to Killdeer Plains WA with
some light still available.  At the Morral-Nevada exit off of Rt. 23,
there was a flock of 30 Snow Buntings, right along the exit ramp and
bridge over Rt. 23.  How lucky can I get!!?  At the pond just east of
Pond 27 at KPWA, there were 86 Tundra Swans, but not much else-a few
Mallards and Canada Geese.  I checked out the cedar tree along the road
near the barn just east of the parking lot to the traditional owl pine
grove but found no Long-eared Owl as previously reported.  At the
Sportsman's Center, I found the Rough-legged Hawk, previously reported
there.

 

I ended today with 86 six species, by adding Horned Grebe,
Red-shouldered Hawk, Northern Shrike, Common Merganser, Snow Bunting,
Tundra Swan and Rough-legged Hawk.  That's a pretty good list for
slightly more than five full days of birding without a visit to Lake
Erie!

Jay

 

Jay G. Lehman

Cincinnati, OH

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