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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