Almost got rained out of making the farm circle this morning. Then it quit so I
did make the farm circle, seeing a couple of up close Gnatcatchers. After
getting back home, rain looked far enough off to chance a trip to Parsons Pond.
When I made it down to the weedy shore, what I think was an American Bittern
flew up a few feet away from me and headed down to the south end, among the
cottonwoods. While following it down to that end with binoculars, I picked up a
larger bird, which lit in a cottonwood. Put the scope on it. It was an Osprey.
The only other time I’ve ever seen an Osprey was in 1975 by a farm pond. I had
no camera with me then and didn’t belong to any bird group. Having no
documentation, I’ve never filed a historical report for that sighting, so that
makes Osprey kind of a life bird for me. I also think I saw an American Bittern
at Mosley’s Pond in 1982. Again, I had no documentation and never filed a
historical report. I didn’t get documentation on the bittern today either and
did not add it to my eBird list because of the chance I could have instead seen
an immature night heron.
I did get some semi respectable pictures of the Osprey, approaching closer and
closer with it apparently ignoring me. When it finally left, I think it was
because it couldn’t spot any fish in this pond rather than being scared off by
me. It began sprinkling by the time I got to that end of the pond, so I kept
moving and didn’t attempt to find where the possible bittern landed. An up
close Blue-winged Teal made me stop and put my scope on it. Then it flew away a
split second before I snapped its picture. Some nearby Spotted Sandpipers
didn’t fly away, so I snapped some pictures of them instead. For some reason,
the teal came back and landed right where it had been before. This time,
everything was set up and I did get its picture.
It began raining at a pretty good pace long before I got back to the truck.
Luckily, I had a zip-lock bag in my back pocket to put my not water proof
camera in. That was there because I had been looking for some jewel weed
sprouts to transplant yesterday. Good thing I didn’t find any or the zip-lock
would have been too dirty to put a camera in.
https://ebird.org/checklist/S67788758 ;<https://ebird.org/checklist/S67788758>
Frank Lyne
frank@xxxxxxxxxxx - near Dot in Logan County, KY
