Hooray for a Hoary!!

     Friday night I couldn't really get much sleep, I was too excited about the next day. I had a good feeling about finally getting to see a Hoary Redpoll. The conditions all seemed perfect, time frame was good, I had my Rogue Birder friends (please see the rogue birder blog, link to it and other cool blogs now in the right hand side) coming along to help spot it, the weather conditions were perfect for the finches to be out and active, and I had gotten word from my good friend Bill Kinkead that the bird was present on Friday. So up and at it early on Saturday. Jeremy, Dan and I all met up with Chris at his house at 5am (well I may have been 7 min late...), and we hit the road heading north to Toledo. The 2 hour 45 min drive goes by quickly and we are on location by 8am. Since I needed to be back in Dayton around 2:30 we had till about noon at the latest before we needed to head back. Thankfully my friends were understanding of time constraints. The plan, spend 8-12 looking for the Hoary if we have to. Luckily, we didn't have to! Very quickly we got on to a large group of 25+ Pine Siskins and a couple Common Redpolls, a very good sign. I saw the Hoary for a split second before dove low and flew left but I wasn't 100% sure to call it. About 3 minutes later Jeremy gets on a bird, we all look and confirm it, Hoary Redpoll! Bingo baby! It was hanging out with 3 CORE. It was only 8:35. That was quick but of course we stayed for another hour out in the freezing cold to try and get some pictures of this cute little Ohio rarity. A lifer for me and another Ohio bird to get me 1 closer to my goal of 320 by the end of 2015. I am still incredibly stoked about this bird! Ever since the Hoary at Wendy Park while I was in Texas I've been thinking about this species and when I would get one in Ohio. Very lucky another showed up in Ohio this year!

     So its 9:40, mission accomplished but now I have a new mission for the day. It's January 31st and CORE and HORE gave me 99 species for Ohio. Only needed 1 more for my first January 100! Game on. Easiest target, House Finch... haha! We spend some time up in the Toledo area seeing some of the local celebs at Maumee, like Northern Saw-Whet Owl and Northern Shrike. A couple of very good birds that other Rogue members still needed. But still no House Finch! Like seriously? We even checked some feeders up there and nothing. Ok time to head back to Dayton, still at 99. Maybe I can get a quick HOFI at Chris's house or Jeremy's feeders once we get home. Another 2 hour 45 min drive back and finally we get to Chris's. Goldfinches in the yard, no HOFI. Dang. I go to drop Jeremy off at his house real quick and check his yard. No HOFI. Dang. I'm running out of time. It's only 2:45 but I had my Goddaughter's birthday party at 3 that I needed to get to. I pretty much gave up on the HOFI idea and started to think about sneaking away at the end of the party to get the Great Horned Owl at Woodman Fen, BUT while stopped at a red light near my house, a tiny little hawk comes busting out of some trees right over my car! Sharp-Shinned Hawk! 100!!! What a great surprise and now the stress was gone, wasn't expecting to get to 100 having spent 1/3 of the month in Texas. Time to see my little baby Chloe.

     The party was fun and little Chloe got about a million presents for turning 3. She was a bit overwhelmed by all of them haha. The party was winding down around 5 and I was getting a little bored so I took my little cousin Noah with me to look for GHOW really quick before dinner casue why not. He hasn't birded really and never seen an owl so I thought this would be a cool experience for him if we could find the thing. After about 15 min of searching, I'm looking one way and Noah the other and he spots the owl bailing out of tree! Needless to say he was excited. It only took about 3 minutes for us to walk over there and then I relocated it in a tree thanks to the help from some Chickadees. It was a great experience for Noah where he got to spot the owl on his own and I got to teach him some cool things about the outdoors and birds. Now he just needs some bins and a guide to help him get started! Here is a picture of the owl that he took with my camera. It was a very nice moment and great way to end such an amazing day! Now let's eat!

     Final January stats:
         ABA birds: 258 (7th according to eBird), absolutely fantastic start. Neil saw 252 in Jan in his big year and Chris saw 247 during his but of course they had a few rarer birds than I did but still very cool to be on a better "pace" than either of those guys!
         2015 Ohio: 101 species. My first January 100! Still no HOFI! I think its kind of hilarious and now my goal is to see how long I can go without seeing one.
         Miles in a car: 6256. WOW haha. A lot of fun and luckily I only had to drive for about 2000 of those miles.

     It was an absolutely fantastic first month of 2015 birding for me!! Now on to February!