FreeLists / birdky / [birdky] RPT: Update on Roseate Spoonbill, Aug 18th

["Palmer-Ball, Brainard (EPPC OOS KNPC)" <Brainard.Palmer-Ball@xxxxxx>]

A number of folks got to see the Roseate Spoonbill at Grayson Lake
today, Saturday, August 18th. It was not far north on the lake from
where it has been previously reported.
 
Jane & Pat Bell, Eddie & Jennifer Huber, Carol Besse, Matt Stickel, and
myself arrived at the KY 504 ramp at 11:00 a.m. to find Scott Marsh and
Rhonda Bryant putting their kayaks back on top of their car. Scott and
Rhonda had been out earlier and found the bird in the vicinity of the
second, more northern point where it was originally discovered. We got
there about 11:30 and found it a bit farther north, perched on a snag
about 10 feet over the water. It then went down to the bank, fed a bit,
then perched on a dead snag lying in the water. We returned to the ramp
and met Ben & Mary Yandell, who accompanied me back for a second visit.
This time the bird was even a bit farther north, around a bend to the
east on a more extensive sandbar with some Canada Geese. Ben, Mary and I
watched it for 30-45 minutes as it loafed and fed in the shallow water
of a small back channel. Ben got some nice shots digiscoped through his
binocs. To us it looked like David Sibley's depiction of a 2nd year
bird.
 
Other birds we saw while on Grayson Lake included several Great Blue
Herons; 1 or 2 Green Herons, 1 Mallard, 2 Blue-winged Teal, 20-30 Canada
Geese, Turkey and Black vultures overhead, Red-tailed and Broad-winged
hawks, and a few Solitary and Spotted sandpipers.
 
Some in our extended group dropped by the Minor Clark Fish Hatchery
either on the way there or on the way back, but found only a few common
shorebirds among lots of Green Herons.
 
On behalf of KY birders, I would like to publicly thank Tom Uhlman of
Cincinnati for letting everyone know about his find (a 4th state record
and first away from far western KY ... for those to whom I said it was
the 5th record today, I added up one too many from Lake No. 9) and also
for so wonderfully photo-documenting the bird. Also thanks to Bob Foppe,
also of Cincinnati, who forwarded along the report from the Cincinnati
Bird Club message board before Tom had found out who to get ahold of in
KY.
 
BPB, Frankfort