Yesterday afternoon we went to Pleasant Hill Lake (near Mohican State Park) to try to find the Franklin's Gull that Su Snyder had seen there.  No luck there, even though we scoured the beach & other areas for about 2-3 hours.  All we found, gull-wise, were a whole lot of Ring-bills (100s), 2 or 3 Herrings & about 1/2 dozen Boneparte's.  Try as we might, we couldn't turn any of the Boneys into Franklin's--they all had orange legs.  No Lesser-black Backed either.  But while searching the lake from the fishing dock at the public launch area, we came across what we were pretty sure was a Red-necked Phalarope.  Definitely a phalarope--shape, size & the way it moved all spoke phalarope.  We both thought it had too much black on the side & top of it's head to be a Wilson's & not enough color to be a Red,  We both were able to watch it for a couple of minutes each before it flew & we lost it in the crowd.  Could not relocate it.

Seeing the phalarope goes a pretty long way towards making up for missing the Franklin's.  Only the 2nd time we have seen a red-necked & I love phalaropes.  But the Franklin's would have brought me pretty close to 300 Ohio birds.  But that is what makes it fun.  Sometimes you score, sometimes you miss, sometimes you score something you didn't expect.


Laura & Tim
Louisville

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