If you just want the bird list skip to the end, if you want to read a
touching, heart-warming tale of birding then read everything.

Sometime back in the mid to late 90s, when I was in my teens, my dad showed
me a news paper article about a flock of American White Pelicans that landed
in a retention basin off Route 2 in Mentor.  In the article it mentioned
that when birders went to view the pelicans they also found a Wilson’s
Phalarope.  Some of you reading this probably saw those birds and remember
that exact day, whereas, I obviously do not.  At that point, I more or less
knew there existed some sandpipers called phalaropes, but knew nothing about
them.  Later that day, my dad and I had to drive out past that very pond and
saw those very pelicans, my first “non-regular” Ohio bird sighting, but of
course missed the phalarope.  Over the years, I learned more about these
fascinating little sandpipers and really wanted to see one.  It wasn’t until
last fall when I saw my first, the Red Phalarope that came into Mentor
Headlands.  So, when it came up on the listserv this morning (6/1) that a
Red-necked Phalarope was seen at Conneaut, I decided to give it a go after
work.  

Well, I failed to find the Red-necked Phalarope, but did find an energetic
Wilson’s Phalarope spazing around!  My first ever!  I do wish my dad was
there to see it with me.  It would have been fitting since we missed that
one so many years ago, but he decided to call earlier in the day from his
hotel in Colorado to inform me that he saw his first Pygmy Nuthatch, so
sucks to him.  

Pictures of this bird can be seen on the Birding Ohio Facebook page.

Anyways, I made a short story long, so if you want to know the actual bird
details:
Conneaut Sand Spit, 7-9pm
Weather was cold, windy and drizzly, AKA miserable.
Killdeer
Semipalmated Plover
Greater Yellowlegs
Ruddy Turnstones
Dunlin
White-rumped Sandpipers
Semipalmated Sandpipers
Wilson’s Phalarope

Andy

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