I started late on Sunday morning at Germantown Metro Park looking for
the Fox Sparrows previously reported by John Habig at the feeders. When
I arrived, the windows area was blocked from 12:30 -2:00 pm for a bird
photography class. So, I walked the trails, and within about 10 minutes
I found a beautiful Fox Sparrow. I took the boardwalk left coming out
of the Nature Center and continued left and uphill though the cedars
until a small frozen pond. I found the Fox Sparrow in the undergrowth
on the other side of the pond by skirting the pond on a trail along the
downhill side of the pond and then back uphill to the left. Fox Sparrow
is number 93.
I was heading north to the lake for this long weekend, and decided to
stop a few places north along the way. I stopped by Hoover Dam to look
for the Ruby-crowned Kinglet reported on Saturday below the dam, but
didn't find it. Then I stopped at Mud Hen Marsh, where a Ruby-crowned
Kinglet had been seen as recently as 01/11/00. I walked the trail
directly south from the parking lot. A short distance from the parking
lot at a "T", a Ruby-crowned Kinglet came out of some snow covered
bushed to my "spishing." Ruby-crowned Kinglet is number 94. After a
quick swing around the feeders at the pit in Greenlawn Cemetery added no
new species, I headed north to Cleveland to stay the night for lake
front birding in the morning.
At E. 72nd Street, I quickly added Herring Gull (95), Great Black-backed
Gull (96), Glaucous Gull (97) and Iceland Gull (98). After about two
hours watching gulls and after other birders started showing up, I found
a Lesser Black-backed Gull (99). Later, a Thayer's Gull was being
identified, and I thought that I had found number 100. However, I was
not entirely satisfied, so I repaired to my van to warm up and checked
my reference texts that I brought along (Olson and Larson; P. Grant). I
realized that none of the first year birds I saw were definitive
Thayer's Gulls. None had had the light brown solid centers on the
tertials and the light brown tail of a first year Thayer's Gull. The
brown of Thayer's is darker than that of first year Iceland but lighter
than the dark brown primaries of first year Herring Gulls. The
tertials and tails of all birds that I saw were mottled or checkered
with light brown, which indicates Iceland/Kumlein's Gulls and not
Thayer's. I didn't see a definitive Thayer's Gull.
I needed a break from watching gulls so I checked out Burke Airport for
the Snowy Owl, without success. Then I stopped by Eastlake Power Plant,
but found a sizable flock of Canvasback, Redheads, both scaup, some
Golden-eye and very few Red-breasted Mergansers. There were fewer gulls
at Eastlake than at E. 72nd Street. I continued east and found
Black-capped Chickadee (100) at a private feeder along the road near
Mentor Marsh and not far from the entry road to Headland State Park.
Then I headed west to check out Avon Lake Power Plant. The mix of birds
at Avon Lake was about the same as that at Eastlake, so I returned to
Burke Airport to look again for the Snowy Owl. I was not successful. I
returned to E. 72nd Street for a short last look at gulls, and found
Glaucous and Iceland readily, and a Lesser Black-backed Gull but no
Thayer's, before it got too dark for gull watching. Oh well, there are
still about eleven days left in January, and I did manage at least 100
birds for January in Ohio. This is the earliest in January that I have
reached 100.
Jay
Jay G. Lehman
Cincinnati, OH
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