Delaware . . . the state!

March is starting off with a road trip. Even though it is still cold and snowy here in Columbus, I still got to do some traveling. Last March, team Dickcissel, traveled to the Rio Grande Valley in Texas. We got to bird for 3 days, and I saw 136 species, including 4 lifers. This March, I got to drive over 500 miles one way to Millsboro, Delaware to see Sharon Gambill. Since my father passed away in 2001, Sharon has lived in Delaware, but now is in the process of moving to the west coast. So, I got a chance to see her and pick up any remaining items from my father's estate.  Lots of books, artwork, memory boxes, and luckily his ABA year lists!!

 
 

$6 toll eastbound

Traveling by car over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge to the Del-Marva Peninsula is scary. Because of its height, the narrowness of the spans (there are no hard shoulders), the low guardrails, and the frequency of high winds, it is known as one of the scariest bridges not only in the USA but, in the world. Several incidents related to the bridge have occurred in the past. In some cases, these have caused significant closures and traffic congestion on either side approaching the bridge. On July 19, 2013, a tractor-trailer hit a car from behind forcing the car on top of the concrete Jersey wall. The car straddled the wall and then fell about 27 feet into the water with the driver inside. The driver escaped the sinking car and swam to safety. I always try to travel on the bridge at daylight. Night time is just too eerie and you are tired from the over 400 miles driven already.

X means closed left lane

She survived, 2007 Chrysler Sebring

There are great national wildlife refuges on the east coast of Delaware, espcially during spring migration. Bombay Hook, Prime Hook, Cape Henlopen State Park and Indian River Inlet are just
four great places to bird all year around. The first stop was Prime Hook, but not a lot was going on. It was around 33 degrees and strong winds. I did mange to walk the dike trail and got several first of year(FOYs) birds like Tundra Swan, Belted Kingfisher, Yellow-rumped Warbler, and Bonaparte's Gull. Probably 1000 Northern Pintails where in display too.

Next stop, the all new Indian River Inlet bridge. It carries four lanes of Delaware Route 1 (DE 1) over the Indian River Inlet between the Indian River Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. The bridge is within Delaware Seashore State Park between Rehoboth Beach and Bethany Beach. Since it is the connector between the ocean and the bay, it is a great place to bird. Guess who I saw there up close?? My lifer buddy, a Long-tailed duck!! I'm getting good at IDing them lately. 

lifer buddy #532.2

Indian River Inlet bridge

Surf & Black Scooters

all Black Scooter with Orange bill

 

 

At the east end of the bridge, I got to see about 200-300 Surf & Black Scooters, in full breeding plumage. The birds where a little skittish, so I didn't want to get too close. Here are the two best pictures I could get. Great news, I'm scootered out for my BigYear 2014.  I've got a three speciecs. I missed the Black Scooter last year. You can see Black and White-winged in Ohio. The most common bird you see this time of year around the east coast is the Snow Goose. I'd say I counted about 4000-5000 birds all weekend. Flying over, sitting in the fields, just everywhere. I only saw about 25 Canada Geese in one spot.    

Snow Geese

tons of them in fields

GBBG, larger/blk mantle/pink legs

A couple of other FOYs that I got where the Cedar Waxwing and Greater Black-backed Gull. So the trip did produce 7 first of year birds, and 38 total species. Not bad for only a couple hours of birding and bad weather conditions.

Cedar Waxwings

                         


                                                                     



Below are two pieces of my dad's artwork I wanted to share. There is so much, not really sure where to start. I believe this is a breeding plumage Red Knot, pen and ink, with color added to it.

To the right is from the ABA newsletter "Winging It"(1989-2001) that Buddy illistrated every month. He did the cover artwork, and then added in drawings of the current RBA(rare bird alert) for the month. This was all before computors and email, just old fashioned mailed publications. This copy is from January 1993, "A pelagic trip to the Dry Tortugas" by Will Russell. My records show that Buddy saw the White-Tailed Tropicbird on May 2, 1982 in the Dry Tortugas. Enjoy!!


Next post: Florida life birds or bust!!

Life bird . . . again

Last year during a run of 16 life birds, I saw the Long-Tailed duck at Dillon State Park lake. I was at the boat ramp of SR146 and scoped the duck at 200-300 yards with a group of Scaup. It was a female/immature, but far away.  That was my life bird. But not to fear. This cold winter has produced lots of hard to get ducks, scooters and grebes in Ohio. They come down here because it's even colder up there in Canada.
Single digit temperatures didn't deter me from the hunt for the elusive long-tailed duck, for a second time. On Februray 12th at Deer Creek Dam spillway 9am, it was so cold, it was beautiful. I parked right up front in the lot, and the ducks where 30 yards away. One drake and three hens. 

bird #531.2

Spillways where hot in 2014

females

Cardinal in the tree?

Bam! Oldsqaws

Looning at you kid

Because this has been coldest winter we've had in the last 20 years, a lot of birds have come down to the only open water there is. Great places to see waterfowl up close are natural spring filled ponds and  spillways at the dams of Hoover, Alum, Deer Creek, Griggs, O'Shaugh. The Common Loon was at Hoover a couple of days later.
On the 26th of February, I drove up to Alum Creek dam to see some geese. I have been looking for a small Cackling Goose to finish off my winter goose hunt, and hoped to see one. But instead got this Snow Goose(blue morph) or Ross Goose(blue morph)(which another birder told me he thought it was).  My guess is Snow Goose, especially after you see my next post about my trip to Delaware . . . the state!@11.
This looks like the end to winter for 2014. February had 12" of snow and this winter is now 3rd snowiest for central Ohio.  The Olympics are over and the snow is gone for now. Back to normal temps for March. Maybe some early migrants/rarities with warmer weather. But the eye on the prize is Florida at the end of the month. Need me some lifers.

Next post: DE or bust!

Common Loon

Snow or Ross goose?

11/3/2013 LTD

CA bird walk at Blendon

Early every month, at Blendon Woods Metro Park, the Columbus Audubon hosts a public birdwalk. Fun for all ages. The guide is Naturalist Bruce Simpson, and it averages 25 people or more. So on the cold Sunday morning of February 2nd, we bird! The group walked out Lake Trail to the blinds to see waterfowl.  Not much in the woods along the way. But the view at Lake Thoreau did not disappoint!!

"Birds eye view" on the blind

Most of it was frozen, but the center was open water, and lots of ducks, and what is that big white thing? A good amount of Mallards, American Black Ducks, but nice views of Redheads, American Wigeon and a pair of Gadwall.

Mute Swan(pinkish bill)

The lone white wolf is called a Mute Swan. We can get four countable Swans in the ABA, and the three common ones can all be seen in Ohio. The hardest swan to see is a Whooper Swan(code4) and is only considered countable in the wild in Alaska, and guess who has seen a Whooper? Red&Louise Gambill(6/4/91 Nome,AK#754)

Inside blind

After all the waterfall gets identified, we get to take a special trip into the pine woods behind the lake. We only get to do this in the winter and that's because we are looking for the Red-Breasted Nuthatch, a winter bird. But no luck this time. Some of the group did get to see and hear a Brown Creeper though.

Bird Walk!

Team SnowBlunting_2014

March 9th, 9am meet HERE

Back in the parking lot, and its SNOWING. What an end to great a mourning. Getting to see some friends, walk and talk, see wildlife and learn about nature. GOD is good. I ended up with 41 species for the day, but that included my screech owl(prior post) and a stop at the Hoover spillway for new ducks, merganers and GBH. Next walk is March 9th, 9am.


Next up: Life bird part Duex!?!

Owl in a what?!?

Owls are a great species of bird. Even non-birders can identify an owl from other birds. Maybe not the proper name of the owl, but at least they know of some like Snowy, Great Horned and Barn. This large family comprises around 189 living species in 25 genera. The typical owls have a cosmopolitan distribution and are found on every continent except Antarctica. For the record keeping of the American Birding Association(ABA), there are 23 different owls to count, but only 19 are a code 3 or less. Meaning the other 4 code 5 owls are once in a lifetime events. So, my current life owl list is at 14 for ABA, with my most current lifer, the Flammulated Owl seen 3/1/2013 in South Padre, Texas.

On Sunday morning, February 2nd, before the Columbus Audubon Bird walk, myself and team SnowBlunting member SP, went to a Westerville bike path, to see an Eastern Screech Owl that has been making his roost in the rafters of a bike bridge. Pictures below

Eastern Screech-Owls are active at night and are far more often heard than seen—most bird watchers know this species only from its trilling or whinnying song. However, this cavity-roosting owl can be attracted to nest boxes or, if you’re sharp-eyed, spotted in daylight at the entrance to its home in a tree cavity. Red and  Gray individuals occur across the range of the Eastern Screech-Owl, with about one-third of all individuals being Red. Rufous owls are more common in the East, with fewer than 15% red at the western edge of the range. No red owls are known from southern Texas, although they occur further north in Texas and further south in Mexico. Intermediate brownish individuals also occur in most population

I see you . . you see me?

zoomed out

Red Morph Eastern Screech Owl

scoping the Flammulated Owl 3/13' TX

Gray Morph Eastern Screech in TX 2013

ABA Owl history with grandpa and grandma:
They're baack! Park staff was happy to see the return of some of our favorite park visitors, Red and Louise Gambill from Ohio. If you've been to Bentsen in the morning during the winter anytime during the last 26 years, you may have seen these two walking through Bentsen on their daily walk. Red and Louise are great birders. They are credited with finding the first U.S. record for Collared-Forest Falcon(Code 5) on January 22nd, 1994 and the first U.S. record for Stygian Owl(Code 5) on December 26th, 1996. Roy, one of Bentsen's naturalists, poses with them here. If you see them at the park, make sure to say hello.

My grandparents have seen 20 of the 23 ABA species of owls in the ABA region. Only missing 3 of the hard to get code 5 rare owls(Oriental Scops-Owl, Mottled Owl, Brown Hawk-Owl). They always had seen the even harder to get now Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl and Elf Owl in Bentsen SP, which was always the place to bird in the Rio Grande Valley, Texas.

 

fall of 2012 at Bentsen State Park

 Next up:  Columbus Audubon Bird Walk at Blendon Woods Metro Park

I do it for the Snow

What a January it has been. Nothing but snow and cold. It was the coldest winter in the last 20 years. We had 17.7 inches of snow for the month.  The average temperature was 22.8 degrees. The coldest day was Tuesday 28th at minus-11 degrees. I mean Cold. I have been wearing thermals during the day at work and outside birding almost everyday.
On the last weekend of 2014 Columbus, Ohio had another one-two punch. On Friday night it snowed 5"s and Saturday was the snowday bailout day. Then Sunday, another 3"s of fresh powder. So me and Mr. Torro where busy tying the record with 7 uses for a winter. Remember, Records are made, and Records are made to be broken!!

full weekend snow total

25 mins. later

Mr. Torro no.7

 

The olde turn gets her another one

looking west, highest point in Franklin cty?

Next Up: Happy February! Columbus Audobon Birdwalk at Blendon Woods

Grandma & Geese

I had talked with Grandma Louise Gambill a couple of times since the new year but not seen her since Christmas Day. She got out to do a New Years Day BigDay2014 with her daughter and son-in-law and got 50 species for first of the year. Not bad considering the cold and snow. This is only her 2nd winter here in Ohio in the last 26 years; always staying in the Rio Grand Valley, Texas for the winter.

Yeah #birds

 So I picked grandma up on the 14th, and did a little birding at Pickerington Ponds and Howe Industrial Parkway(got GBH there). It was good to get out of the house, get some sun and see some birds. Nothing too fancy, the BarnOwl must of been hunkered down low so no go, but we did get 20 species for the day with Northern Pintail, E. Bluebird, A. Kestrel as the highlights.

She told me of a time during spring migration her and Red got 100 species everyday for 10 days in a row!! That's a big accomplishment. They were on their way back north from the valley along the gulf coast, with stops in Galveston and High Island in Louisiana.

GWFG

On the morning of the 19th, myself and fellow team SnowBlunting member rode out to Prairie Oaks Metro Park in West Jeff to spot the reported Greater White-Fronted Geese from the birding.aba.org/maillist/OH.  This is the same park I got them last year, just a different pond. No Ross or Cackling with other geese this time.

Breeding across the tundra from Nunavut to Siberia, across Russia, and in Greenland, the Greater White-fronted Goose has one of the largest ranges of any species of goose in the world. There are 4 sub species of this goose. Greater/Lesser/Tule/Greenland

Different flight beat/pattern than CAGO

Can you spot the GOOSE?

Up next: More snow and cold in January

Black-legged Kittiwake in CBus?!?

I daily habit in the birding world, is to check your local ABA listserv.  It is a great tool/technology that we get in today's instant society.  The listserv is a free website based on the birding.aba.org that breaks down each state's current bird reports.  Birders can email in their sighting or question, and others get to read and know of all the recent goodies. The best part is, when you travel to other states for vacation, check out that states listserv, and you have free guide to what locals are seeing.

So, just after January 6th, a post on Ohio's listserv site birding.aba.org/maillist/OH reported a rare inland Code 1 gull--the Black-legged Kittiwake at Atrium Park in Worthingon, just off SR315 North.  A small, cliff-nesting gull, the Black-legged Kittiwake breeds along northern coasts and winters out at sea. The name is derived from its call, a shrill 'kittee-wa-aaake, kitte-wa-aaake'. They are fish feeders, and are more pelagic than Larus gulls outside the breeding season. They do not scavenge at tips like some other gull species

Kittiwake and it's Ring-Billed girlfriend

1st winter BLKI

 So, this was not a life bird for me, but a great First of Year(FOY) bird for me.  I missed adding this gull to my 2013 BigYear list, but I got it for 2014!!!  Typically you can see a BLKI up in Cleveland at E 72nd st warm water outlet in the winter, but don't ask me why this bird was down in Columbus, must have flown in with his buddies RBGU and HEGU.  My records show that I first saw this bird on 4/21/1992 in NagsHead, NC, with my dad Buddy Gambill. We had a beach house down there, and would go on SpringBreak to visit.

Lastly, the main purpose of this blog, is to connect with past experiences and birders along my path that have meet/know the Gambill family dynasty. And when I was watching the Kittiwake, a birder stopped by to look too, and introduced himself as Jim Adair. Turns out Jim is local CBus birder, and birding many times at GreenLawn Cemetery, and remembers meeting Red&Louise Gambill, and a little boy that was with them. Guess what? That little boy was myself!! It was great to connect, hear stories from the past, and still share in this hobby. Nothing is better than seeing a new bird with a fellow birder.

So, back to winter, and more winter Geese & Duck hunting.