RUFF !! local

It was spring break week back in 1992. I was a freshman in high school. I was fresh off my 500th bird in the fall of 1991.  My dad Buddy would take me down to the Outer Banks of North Carolina for the week. We had a beach house there, that he would have to get ready for summer rental season. It was back then on April 21,1992 in Nags Head, NC that I saw my life bird Ruff. I don't remember any details, but it was in my book, so I'm sure dad made sure I saw that damn bird!!!

Fast forward 23 years later, and BOOM!!!  A juvenile Ruff was spotted on Friday 25th at the north Hoover mudflats in Galena, OH. Two days later, the chase was on.

Ruff

Philomachus pugnax

taken from the boat

Code-3: Rare.
Species that occur in very low numbers, but annually, in the ABA Checklist Area. This includes visitors and rare breeding residents. Mostly east coast and California coasts.

Juvenile

Ring-billed Gulls, Greater Yellowlegs, Ruff in the middle

The ruff is a migratory species, breeding in wetlands in colder regions of northern Eurasia, and spends the northern winter in the tropics, mainly in Africa-Senegal. The largest numbers breed in Russia (more than 1 million pairs), Sweden (61,000 pairs), Finland (39,000 pairs) and Norway (14,000 pairs). Of the various Eurasian shorebirds that stray into North America, this one is the most regular and widespread in its occurrence.



Gambill family history of seeing a Ruff:
My dad Buddy has his first observation on 4/10/1979 in Wooster, Ohio
Red & Louise have seen many through out their years of birding, I just don't have an exact date.

Life Bird time Nevada

ABA #571

My annual trip to Las Vegas, Nevada continues to pay off. Too bad the casino's are not as hot as the birding has been.  While there on vacation, I manged to bird with birdingpal.org guide, John Taylor again. After visiting Henderson BP on Wends, Thursday morning we went north on SR 95 to Corn Creek NWP. Wow, what a place. But we needed to change the habitat and elevation to get different birds. So we moved north, then west off SR 156 up to Mt. Charleston.  We drove from 2000 ft elevation up to 8100 ft elevation. Once at the Deer Creek Picnic area, off SR 158, we got out and walked up the trail. On the way out back to the parking lot . . . I keep glancing the top of the trees . . .  then bang!!!

Clark's Nutcracker

Nucifraga columbiana

High in the mountains of the West, gray-and-black Clark’s Nutcrackers swoop among wizened pine trees, flashing white in the tail and wing. They use their dagger-like bills to rip into pine cones and pull out large seeds, which they stash in a pouch under their tongue and then carry away to bury for the winter. Each birds buries tens of thousands of seeds each summer and remembers the locations of most of them. Seeds they don’t retrieve play a crucial role in growing new pine forests.

Clark’s Nutcrackers are birds of the mountains. They are closely associated with pines that produce large seeds, such as whitebark pine and limber pine, but are also found in other montane evergreen forests from about 3,000 to more than 11,000 feet in the West.

Oh yeah . . Lifer!!

Clark’s Nutcracker is in the crow and jay family—but the first time Captain William Clark saw one, in August of 1805, he thought it was a woodpecker. He and Meriwether Lewis collected a specimen in Idaho on their return journey a year later. Clark’s Nutcracker was one of three new bird species brought back from their expedition, all of which were described by the naturalist Alexander Wilson

Next up:  Las Vegas birding . . . should I start a state list for NV yet??

Puffin Palagic Boat trip

Bucket found

That a girl . . . let that nice lunch you just had out . . . you shouldn't eat before a boat trip grandma says:)

Whew, we finally made it to Maine, and got a boat trip to take us out to see Puffins and other waterbirds. After some research, I located http://www.oldquarry.com/ out of Stonington that host several outdoor adventures. From camping and sea kayaking to light house boats trips and puffin boat trips. They schedule trips out to see the puffins twice  a month, from May until August. So we are set, now if it would not rain on us!!


The trips are usually 9am-2pm, five hours total and that Tuesday morning was perfect(see the Bar Harbor pics), but wouldn't you know it, the rain front coming up the east coast was hitting NE Maine around 2pm, but we had 16 people, a bird guide, and 2 crew . . . nothing can stop puffing us now!!!

the SS Nigh Duck

So it's 2 hours out,  one hour there, and 2 hours back, a 5 hour tour.  And it starts raining on the way out. We had rain gear so we stayed in the back of the boat and got great sights of Wilson's Storm Petrels, Northern Gannets, and Greater Shearwaters.

Having fun yet??

Wilson's Storm Petrel

Also the crew spotted this fin sticking out of the water?? What is it??  We slowed down and got closer to it.

What?

  

Ocean Sunfish

Turns out, it is a large Common Imola or Ocean Sunfish.  The heaviest known bony fish in the world. It has an average adult weight between 545–2,205 lb. The species is native to tropical and temperate waters around the globe. It resembles a fish head with a tail, and its main body is flattened laterally. Sunfish can be as tall as they are long when their dorsal and ventral fins are extended.

google images photo

Cool, a new life fish!!!  So by now the waves/swells are getting bigger, it's raining more, wind is picking up, and 4 people have now used the puke buckets . . . it's getting rough. But finally, after a little more than 2 hours, we see an island off in the distance . . it's Seal Island NWR

#T4P at Seal Island NWR

Once we get there, we cut the engines down to no wake speed and troll around the back side of the island, back and forth for about 30 minutes. Lucky the rain had slowed to a sprinkle, and the wind and waves where calm in the cove.

We're here!!

Navigation of iPhone working

16 Miles out from coast

No land in sight

Above is a one minute video I took of the island/boat trip, so you get an idea of the nicest part of the trip, and what it's like out there in the middle of nowhere. It' neat to think that Atlantic Puffins and Razorbills come out here to nest. Partly is because of no natural predators like cats, foxes etc can get to them.

After the 30 minutes, we make the turn to head back into land, this time riding the waves makes it easier on the boat and quicker.  We boat through Isle au Haut bay and island and see Gray Seals and Harbor Seals.

Seal

Atlantic Puffin

And this concludes my three part blog series of Maine, where I got 6 life birds now taking me up to #570 ABA birds.

Next up:  Viva Las Vegas!!!!  4th time a charm . . . can I get a lifer??