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April 2011

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Sat, 30 Apr 2011 17:42:32 +0000
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I would appreciate any later in the day sightings as I can't get there until after 6:00.  Thanks.

Cheers,

Bill Hull

Cincinnati

-----Original Message-----

From: David Brinkman <[log in to unmask]>

Sender: Ohio birds <[log in to unmask]>

Date:         Sat, 30 Apr 2011 10:22:56 

To: <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To: David Brinkman <[log in to unmask]>

Subject: [Ohio-birds] GARGANEY - Yes! 4/30/11



All,

 

As of 12 noon today, the time I left the Lodge Pond at Fernald Preserve, the GARGANEY was still being viewed by several observers. The bird is hanging around with a few blue-winged teal. When I was looking through a scope, I saw the bird throw its head back, goldeneye-like. I wondered if maybe he was trying to court the blue-winged teal?

 

While there, a flock of about 30 yellowlegs, most of them appearing to be greater, flew in and landed on the far right of the pond in the vegetation. I had just come straight from Xavier University so I did not have my scope with me. There were also 3 solitary sandpipers, a handful of spotted sandpipers, a green heron and a pair of mute swans (probably nesting), among other birds.

 

I have a copy of Howell Webb's "A Guide to the Birds of Mexico and Northern Central America" as well as Raffaele et. al.'s "A Guide to the Birds of the West Indies." I wanted to get an idea of the breeding and wintering range of the Garganey to put this rarity into perspective. There is no mention of Garganey in the latter, but in the former reference it says the Garganey breeds in Eurasia and winters in Africa and S Asia to Australia. There is only one record of vagrancy in Mexico/N. Central America but there are patterns of vagrancy throughout North America (Sibley, Kaufman). Kaufman's "Lives of North American Birds" says it is a long-distance migrant in the Old World and occurs as a rare migrant in spring and very rarely in fall in the western Aleutian Islands, Alaska. Anywhere else in North America this bird is considered either accidental or escape. Observers who have seen this bird, including myself, have seen it in flight and we do not think that

 it is an escaped bird. We believe this to be a wild bird, but I'm wondering if there is a degree of hybridization. There seems to be more white on the underside of this bird than I'm seeing in the field guides.

 

Good luck to all who chase it. Hopefully it will stick around, at least maybe for the bird-a-thon ;-)



David A. Brinkman

Xavier University graduate student

Middle childhood math & science

Cincinnati, OH



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