Sean & all---
American golden-plovers appear in Ohio in March through May in their
northbound migration. Their long swift passage is always a beautiful
spectacle to witness. The numbers we see depend a lot on weather
patterns, as their primary route passes mostly to our west. If we get a
chance to see a lot of flocks, we can see them gaining their striking
breeding plumage along the way.
I do want to caution folks about using eBird as a one-stop shop for
information about North American birds. Despite other claims you may
hear, data on this source, useful as it is and increasingly will be,
comes from a very narrow stream of information. You won't find out on
eBird that there are plenty of April records for this species in
Delaware and Franklin counties. There are also many records from these
counties with much higher numbers. Observers in the western half of
Ohio, naturally enough, have a better chance of seeing big flocks; my
personal high was in excess of 5000 at Killdeer Plains, and there are
many published Ohio records in the thousands. The record high for
Franklin County, at least the one I know of, is 500+ on 4/18/1924 (see
Pontius. F. D. 1924. The Golden Plover at Columbus, Ohio. Wilson
Bulletin 36(2):97-98), and yes, this can be found without arising from
one's chair at
http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/Wilson/v036n02/p0097-p0098.pdf . Mind you,
I'm also confident there have been flocks in the thousands here that
didn't get reported in another narrow stream of information, that
afforded by the ornithological publications. I recommend to everyone
interested in Ohio's birds getting a copy of Peterjohn's "The Birds of
Ohio"; it is a bargain, and full of verified information derived from
thousands of sources, mostly published; it should be your first stop
before going to other sources. It has its errors and omissions, but
there is currently no more convenient source of authoritative
information. As for eBird, eager and talented observers like Sean will
be adding to its data with each passing day, but for now I advise
against making it one's primary source of information.
Good birding to all,
Bill Whan
Columbus
Sean Williams wrote:
> Right here from my window at the Science Center, at exactly 5:30pm today, I
> was browsing new cell phones (mine's broken) when out of the corner of my
> eye I noticed a distance tight flock heading straight for me. The first
> thing I thought was "cormorants," but it didn't take me long to realize that
> I was far off. The birds were flying low, only ~200-300 ft above the ground.
> They got close enough that I could now see that a third of the birds were
> entirely black underneath (including the vent), a third still completely
> buff, and another third spotted black. At this point I was 100% confident
> that I was looking at 56 AMERICAN GOLDEN-PLOVERS. You could imagine how my
> heart was racing and my legs were moving me into the air. They flew directly
> over my building, headed straight west. I could even see the backs of some
> were golden. Not only is this campus bird #173 for me, but as far as I can
> tell on eBird, there were no previous April records for Delaware or Franklin
> counties. Also, it's the highest count ever for these counties by 50
> individuals. I couldn't even call anyone because my stupid phone is broken!
>
>
> Good birding,
>
> Sean
>
>
> ---
> Sean Williams, '11
> Undergraduate of Ornithology of Dr. Jed Burtt
> Ohio Wesleyan University
> HWCC 724
> Delaware, OH 43015
> 617-470-4094
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