A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

There's a bird out there--honest

The wind was blowing hard, an estimated 30 knots out of the northwest; temperature 34 degrees and waves of lake-effect snow blinded Susan and me, along with a couple other dozen birders this afternoon. A perfect day for birding along Lake Erie. Today was special.
On Tuesday, intrepid birder Craig Holt reported a Black-tailed Gull, sighted in Ashtabula Harbor. Alarms went off all over the nation. This is an Asian species seen on rare occasions along the west coast of America, and on even more rare occasions in the northeast. Never, until Tuesday, in Ohio.
For us, Ashtabula is only a bit more than an hour’s drive. We talked to one chap who’d just driven straight through from Hendersonville, North Carolina, 600 miles away. He was only one of many birders making the pilgrimage to northeast Ohio to see this rare bird.
I’ve had my share of easy lifers, the kind you just accidently find, or chase down and there it sits, smiling, waiting to be photographed. Today’s bird was more of a challenge.
When we got to one of the more-reliable places where the bird had been seen, yesterday, we saw a flock of birding friends huddled next to a building, trying to stay out of the wind. Friend Dwight Chasar said he’d been on the spot almost seven hours and no bird was to be found. Not a good report.
Within 20 minutes our fortunes changed. A birder from another group came running over to us, arms waving, shouting mostly intelligible words. It went something like this:
“It’s up! The bird’s up.! Right side of that pond!”
In unison scopes and binoculars swung to the right. People started shouting, “Where? Where?”
“To the right of that pole.
“Which pole?”
“Right!”
“I thought he said left!”
“The one to the left of the yellow pole?
“Right!”
“No, left of the one on the right!”
“There he is! Right behind the Herring Gull to the left of the light pole on the right side of that coal car.”
Well, there were an estimated 300 Herring Gulls in the flock in front of us, more than a quarter mile away, through a maze of wires and cables and coal cars. And did I mention it was snowing like crazy?
Suddenly the snow stopped and the sun popped out. Everyone caught their breath. The semi-cooperative Black-tailed Gull moved just enough for us to see the color differentiation of its mantle compared with hundreds of other gulls. And as a final salute, in a bird manner, he mooned us, or turned and wagged his black tail.
It don’t get much better than that.