blockquote, div.yahoo_quoted { margin-left: 0 !important; border-left:1px #715FFA solid !important; padding-left:1ex !important; background-color:white !important; } One found just now outside of Indianapolis by Don Gorney
Chris Collinswww.fb.com\indianararebirdalert
Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone
On Sunday, May 8, 2016, 11:46 AM, Bill Whan <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
'Tis the season, and ruff records are being reported, mostly along the
East Coast as usual: Mass, CT, Dela, Fla, Ala, NC over the last few
days. What I've read tells us this is an Old World species (there are a
few nestings in remote areas of Alaska), and many of them winter in
Africa--especially the females. I don't think any records of
mating--which is a remarkable and conspicuous event--are known from the
rest of our continent, but some wonder if perhaps a small nesting
population here feeds those East Coast records. Speculation about this
has gone on for quite a while--see
https://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/journals/wilson/v077n03/p0294-p0296.pdf--but
without confirmation as far as I know. Trautman (2006:152) wondered, for
example, why only one record at the time came from Iceland, which would
surely have been a more convenient stop for flights from Europe.
We have a bunch of records in Ohio, most of the distinctive males;
females are likely as common, but trickier to pick out and identify
(even ruffs can stumble on identifying females; Trautman reported having
seen a male courting a lesser yellowlegs in 1962). In addition, males
are known to mimic female plumage in mating season, apparently giving
them an edge to inseminate them in the crowded spring leks. Sex in Ruff
City can be strange. Ohio's earliest spring record is from 27 March, but
records clump around late April-early May. Ohio's first two records come
from autumn and spring down this way, one immature male at Buckeye Lake
on 11/10/1872, and an adult male collected in downtown Columbus (near
the present site of the Scioto Audubon Metro Park) on 4/28/1878. Worth
looking for now in wet meadows and shallow wetlands!
Bill Whan
Columbus
______________________________________________________________________
Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society.
Please consider joining our Society, at www.ohiobirds.org/site/membership.php.
Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list.
You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at:
listserv.miamioh.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS
Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]
______________________________________________________________________
Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society.
Please consider joining our Society, at www.ohiobirds.org/site/membership.php.
Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list.
You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at:
listserv.miamioh.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS
Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]
|
