Greetings!

Some days are just a bit more memorable, and yesterday (Friday 10/23/20) was one of them.  I met up with Kent Miller in the morning with a plan to look for sparrows along Dueber Avenue (an area of the Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District; see the Birding in Ohio website for info) and then head to the Republic Landfill to scan the gulls.  Access to the landfill is limited to the public to RC Eagles Airfield area.  Access beyond the scales in the landfill itself is not available to the general public.

Kent and I walked a while looking for sparrows.  We did not have much to speak of other than the usual suspects (Song, Swamp, White-throated, White-crowned, and Field).  We did have a few flocks of Pine Siskins (40+), which was common at most of our stops.  We then headed in to the landfill to search the gull flocks.  As we entered, we immediately saw that many of the gulls were flying, indicating that something had stirred up the flocks.  About a hundred or so settled on to the south facing tarps and we were able to identify 4 Lesser Black-backed Gulls in that group, along with about a hundred Herring Gulls.  We made our way towards the current dig site and saw 800+ on the ground (mostly Ring-billed), but before we could get within range to start scoping them, 2 adult Bald Eagles put the entire flock into flight.  NO!!!  Well, sometimes unlucky events yield interesting observations.  We were able to watch these 2, obviously experienced, Bald Eagles actively chase down Herring Gulls.  Neither was successful in their hunt, but they were quite dogged in their pursuit of the gulls.  If you are not too experienced at watching Gulls, they are remarkably nimble flyers and these Eagles were really doing a good job of keeping up, even though they did not succeed in grabbing one this time.  We talked a bit about how they had seemed to pick out 2 birds that looked a bit more ragged, perhaps sick birds.  The number of gulls at that point went from somewhere in the neighborhood of 1000 Gulls at the landfill to literally zero.  So we decided to leave.

On our way to the landfill, Kent got a call from Robert Hershberger (Time & Optics owner, and long time Bobolink Area birder) saying that he had a male Rufous Hummingbird coming to his feeder at his home (next to the store) in Holmes Co.  We both decided that getting to see a colorful male Rufous was a nice compensation for our plans being changed by the Eagles, so we went there and were treated to nice looks of the Hummingbird, as well as getting to see some folks we had not seen yet this year due to the pandemic.  We discussed where to go next, and decided to search for the reported LeConte’s Sparrow at Funk Bottoms in Wayne Co., and our fellow Bobolink Area birder Nicky Rosner was game to join us so we headed to Funk.  We did not have any luck relocating the LeConte’s, but we did see a group of 14 Greater White-fronted Geese that Nicky spied just before we left.

Kent and I did a quick check of Wilderness Rd. and did not see anything in terms of waterfowl.  I mean, zilch.  We started to make our way back home to Stark County.  We talked about checking a few spots for late flying Odonata, and decided to make Jackson Bog SNP our last stop of the day.  We had Autumn and Band-winged Meadowhawks, as well as 2 very active boardwalk patrolling Shadow Darners.  We hoped that the Shadows would land and give us photo ops, but they did not.  As we were about to depart, of all things, a YELLOW RAIL made an awkward, tumbling attempt to cross over the boardwalk.  I had my back turned to it initially, but Kent pointed at it immediately and had a good look at it, and I was able to catch the second half of its stumbling trip across the boardwalk.  The boardwalk at Jackson Bog is made of composite plastic material, so the rail’s difficulty getting its footing makes sense.  When weather is cold, or if snow is one that boardwalk, it is extremely treacherous!  I mean, if there is snow on it, do yourself a favor and do not walk on it.  No joke.  It’s really dangerous.  

Anyway, what an interesting roller coaster of a birding day.  Some parts successful.  Some unsuccessful.  And an ending that was about as unexpected as we could have imagined.  I honestly thought that Yellow Rail was a species I was very unlikely to see in Ohio, let alone 5 minutes from where I live!  Crazy good stuff.  

The spot the rail was seen is on the east end of the boardwalk area by the “Bullrush Meadow” information sign, maybe a hundred yards west of the east entry point of the boardwalk.  Jackson Bog is open dawn to dusk every day.

Jon Cefus
East Central Ohio Director, Ohio Ornithological Society

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