Today (Monday, May 25, 2009) at 12:00 noon my wife and I were walking
south on the bike trail on the east side of the Olentangy river at The
Ohio State University campus, just south of the crew dock and the
bridge at Campus Loop Road. We spotted a dark bird with a heron-like
neck gliding through the water approximately 30 yards away. The body
was entirely submerged. The bird continued south in the water, then
turned north, and then flew out of the water. It took some time to get
airborne, longer than a heron. We thought we had seen a heron.
Returning home, we checked a few bird books. The picture in The
Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds, Eastern Region,
on plate 104 looks very similar to the bird we saw. However, the
description on page 452 says that the anhinga is a bird of southern
marshes and swamps with a range extending northward to Tennessee. The
habitat at Ohio State is a slow moving river with narrow marshy edge,
so it is not a swamp and Ohio seems considerably farther north than
the anhinga's range.

Anyway, the location is so accessible maybe other bird lovers might
try their luck...

-------------------
Anne & Jeff McSweeney

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