HOFI Streak Comes to Sad End

     Well I am sad to say that my streak of avoiding House Finches in Ohio has come to an end. :( What a real bummer. Why, oh why did I look at that stupid bird. Of course I looked, I can't not look at a bird. That's something JB taught me, check everything that moves. Never know. Anyways, that was only part of my birding for the day.

The (Pretty) Culprit

      Today started innocently, wake up, get some work done, go to classes, pack my stuff and start heading south to Dayton to spend the weekend with my family. Of course I would be passing through Columbus with a few hours of daylight left so I would be stupid not to stop and bird some. Right? So naturally I had a little idea of where I wanted to stop and what I wanted to look for. Not much is worthy of a stop in these months. 'Rare' birds in Feb are common in April and May so why go out of my way to see them? Something I learned from last year. I figured I'd make a quick run through Blendon Woods MP and see if I can spot the Turkeys that hang out there. Normally you see them just by driving around a little. This was not normal and I didn't have any luck coming in so I got out to check the feeders for a few minutes. On my way is when I spotted the culprit that ruined my streak. A little, bright red male HOFI. Bastard. Oh well at least I can get it off my needs alert now and thats all that really matters anyways. Man was that thing getting annoying being on there. The drive back out didn't produce any Turkeys either. Dang. On to the next, more important spot.

Look at ME!!

     I figured I would give the Long-Eared Owl thats been hanging around SE Columbus for a few months now a try. When I got there I couldn't remember exactly where to go to look for the owl. After wandering around in the woods, a few nice cuts from thorns, and a little help from Chris I get to where I want to be. I was a little pissed I couldn't remember how to get back into those pines on my own. Finally I get back there, look up, and boom! A cute little LEOW sleeping away. Doesn't even look at me once. He just kept his head turned and tucked a little. Awesome! A few minutes later a Barred Owl calls off in the distance, bonus! Today made 2 ABA year birds and a 3 Ohio birds putting me at 106 in Ohio now. Not too shabby. Time for a little family time this weekend!

    A quick note: I am still working on getting photos of every ABA bird I see this year (or most of them at least). I have a lot of catching up to do still and I am slowly but surely getting there. Here is a link to my flickr album containing all the pics so far.  2015 ABA Photos 180/262 Please keep in mind that some pics are terrible and likely the first pic I took of that species so keep judging to a minimum.

Finch Madness Continues!

     I have been reading a lot of random bird blogs and posts recently from past years. Plus I've been chatting with Danno while he is in Texas looking at Gray-Crowned Yellowthroat and White-Throated Thrush and whatever. Needless to say my inner urge to go see something cool and 'good' was boiling over. What to do, what to do? Hmmmm... There aren't very many options being stuck here in amazing Ohio but I came up with a nice plan that didn't involve too much driving. I decided to make the 80 mile drive south to Mohican State Park to see the lone Ohio Evening Grosbeak. I saw this bird in 2014 for my Ohio big year and it would be a good bird to see again for my 2015 list and hopefully satisfy my bird needs (if only temporarily) Soooo 3 goals for the day, 1. See the EVGR (duh), 2. Check the small town of Perrysville for Euco Doves, and the most important goal of the day 3. Don't see a House Finch! Remember, my new birding goal is to go as long as I can without seeing a HOFI in Ohio. Its not like I'm purposely avoiding small birds as to not see one, I am (as always) IDing every bird I see. This stretch of not seeing an Ohio HOFI is becoming awesome really but I'm not sure what that really says about me as a birder... Oh well, alarm set.

      Up and at it early for the 1.5 hour drive south. The plan is to get there around 8:30 as the bird has been showing up around 9 daily. I picked an excellent day to go weather wise. No snow, a little sun, and cold to bring birds to the feeders. I arrive and the 'normal' parking spot is covered in a layer of 12 inches of snow. Yeah, not happening. What to do? Drive up and down the street for a little looking for the bird. Its not a busy street at all and there are A LOT of birds buzzing around. Good sign for EVGR, no so much for HOFI. Here comes a small finch like bird, oh crap could it be? Nope! Its only a goldfinch, then 2 then 31. The sheer number of birds there were great, bluebirds, blue jays, juncos, goldfinches, but where is the celeb? Finally I just park in the road and get out to look some. Right at 9 am the female beauty flies into a Maple Tree in the back line. Perfect! I enjoyed watching it until it flew off then I flew off before a HOFI decided to make a visit! On to Perrysville. Kinda lame really. Its just this tiny little town that is suppose to have a huge pop of Euco Doves, oh joy. Anyways, I drive around this neighborhood for over an hour. Enough time to make me feel like a complete creep so thats it for me and these Doves. Actually there were no doves, at all. Oh well, not mad. Euco is an easy one elsewhere in the state year-round if I wanted to get it. Time to get back home. Still no HOFI! Yes! Oh and I did get a nice close of experience with a gorgeous Rough-Legged Hawk. One of my favs. Hopefully this quenches my thirst for birds for a little while Dan is gone. Lots of school to do in the mean time. 2/3 goals met today, the most important 2. I have now seen both redpolls, PUFI and EVGR in Ohio before HOFI. Can this finch madness continue?! I sure hope so. Only the crossbills are left really (except for the ridiculous chance at Pine Grosbeak). Who knows I suppose.

      

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!