Selected Ohio-birds Archive of correspondence surrounding this record

From: LOROFS@aol.com 
Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 19:05:38 EDT 
Subject: Mallard Club 
To: ohio-birds@envirolink.org 

Dear OhioBirds,
Larry Peavler and Bill Murphy (two very respected birders)
reported a male Garganey at Mallard Club on Sunday evening. It was
in the second impoundment and I wish I could tell you that it was
still there, but I have no idea if it was seen again today. This
is the first sighting of this species ever in Ohio.

Sincerely,
Larry Rosche

Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 06:23:09 -0700 (PDT) 
From: Greg Miller  
Subject: GARANEY - 5/21 9:15am (YES!) 
To: Ohio-Birds  

Howdy All!

I just got a call from Troy Shively who's watching the
male GARGANEY right now (with a host of other
birders), Tuesday morning at 9:15am, May 21, 2002.
The bird was found at the location described
yesterday, thanks to the good information from Indiana
birder, Larry Peavler.

DIRECTIONS:
Mallard Club Marsh is located just East of Maumee Bay
State Park on Cedar Point Rd (DeLorme p27 C6).  Park
in the westernmost parking area (there are 2 parking
areas).  Walk  diagonally from the parking area to the
Northeast.  Climb the dike.  You should be at a "T"
junction with a dike going straight ahead of you and
an impoundment on either side (East & West).  Walk
maybe 40-50 yards and turn to your right (EAST).  The
bird is in this impoundment.  There is a section of
water nearest the dike, then vegetation, then, further
out, another larger section of water.  The bird is in
this area, but is IN and OUT of sight with the weedy
vegetation.

-Greg Miller
Columbus, OH

Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 16:33:56 -0400 
From: Bill Whan   
To: "ohio-birds@envirolink.org"  
Subject: Re: GARGANEY @ Mallard Club Marsh II 

Thanks to Greg Miller for getting the word out quickly on this
bird. Some hints I hope are helpful follow:
  About 930 this morning, Greg Links found the drake garganey 
when it very briefly rose in flight then landed. Its location was
very close to that Greg Miller described in two previous postings,
although I would say we were more like 100+ yards north along the
dike when closest to the bird.
  The garganey hung around, sometimes quite close, to a drake
blue-winged teal, with a hen teal and perhaps four ducklings in
the background. To get a sense of the location--perhaps this is
material, I dunno--there is a larger muskrat lodge about a hundred
yards east of the dike that sits in a fairly large area of water
with relatively little vegetation; it's maybe a foot higher than
the water, and higher than nearby lodges. Between it and the solid
line of cattail behind was a stand, variably dense, of much finer
vegetation in which the garganey spent most of its time. Often we
could detect at least movement, and got good clear looks when it
passed by openings. It was feeding, preening, and occasionally
raising its head in apparent apprehension. We took about ten
photos through scopes with two SLR cameras, and Ben Fambrough took
some digital images later. Ben's photos at least were good enough
to confirm the ID.
  Morning light in this situation, with clear skies, is a major
problem, so be prepared to choose the best angle.  Troy and I may
well have heard this bird call around 7 am, a dry rattle quite
unlike anything one expects to hear at Mallard Club Marsh.
Sometime after I left, I'm told the bird took off and flew north,
towards Cedar Pt NWR. Could be bad news, but this bird was seen in
the aforementioned area at least twice in three days, so it may be
a favored spot to which it will return. Garganeys in flight show
gray wings with a dark green speculum bordered by two wide bright
white stripes that can look as wide as the speculum itself. 
   Whether this will be Ohio's first record of this species is up
to the Records Committee, but April-May is the period when the
lion's share of the accepted birds show up. Like most teal, this
was a small, wary waterfowl with no propensity to strut its stuff.
Dunk-shot ID, though, and a superb find.

Best of luck to all,
Bill Whan
Columbus

From: Doug Overacker  
To: "'Ohio Bird Alert Messages'"  
Subject: Garganey - Yes 
Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 22:20:50 -0400 

I saw the Garganey at about 1:30 this afternoon. It was in the
same place as described earlier. It seemed to be feeding in the
area and I would guess that it will be seen again there. We
watched it for about 20 minutes and then it disappeared into the
vegetation. About 15 minutes later we found it again and were able
to watch it for at least another 20 minutes.

Doug Overacker
Springfield, Ohio
overacker@iapdatacom.net

From: "John Pogacnik"  
To: "Ohio Birds"  
Subject: Garganey 
Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 06:27:37 -0400 

A quick note about the validity of the Garganey.  I've talked with
a couple of waterfowl breeders a few years ago and we got on the
topic of keeping different species.  Both stated that Garganey are
rarely kept in captivity. The reason, the male is in breeding
plumage for a fairly short period. According to "Ornamental
Waterfowl" (Kolbe, 1979) the drake is in nuptial plumage from
December through May.  Breeders tend to keep waterfowl for there
beauty and in some cases tradability.  Many trade or sell the
young to other breeders.  Needless to say a bird that does not
remain in breeding plumage long is not that highly prized.  At the
time they said they knew of no breeders in or around Ohio.  It was
amazing their knowledge of waterfowl and their distribution
amongst breeders.  They pretty much could list all the breeders
that had smew at the time.

John Pogacnik
4765 Lockwood Road
Perry, Ohio 44081
(440) 259-2751
jpogacnik@ncweb.com

Subject: Garganey 
To: ohio-birds@envirolink.org 
From: lehman.jg@pg.com 
Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 12:29:04 -0400 

This information may not mean anything about the Garganey report
or it could be meaningful.  It also does not necessarily refute
the information previously provided by John Pogacnik.  There are
two exotic wildfowl breeders/suppliers near Fulton, TN, who list
Garganey in their Price List for the year 2000.  The price is $125
from Brundige Waterfowl and $100 from Roberts Waterfowl.  This
information comes from the internet.  There could be more breeders
out there who do not advertise on the internet.  On the other
hand, there is an article in American Birds, 1988, which
attributes the reports of Garganey in North America through May
31, 1985 going back to the '50's, to wild birds and not escapees.

So as Bill Whan told me privately, go see it!!  ...and I probably
will try!!

Jay G. Lehman
Cincinnati, OH
lehmanjg@pg.com

From: Parula100@aol.com 
Message-ID:  
Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 17:41:53 EDT 
Subject: Garganey still present, May 23 
To: ohio-birds@envirolink.org 

The Garganey remains at the Mallard Club Marsh Wildlife Area. I
saw it off and on today between 2:00 and 3:45. The bird seems to
like the area around the smaller, or lower, muskrat house (the
first one you see in the impoundment to the east as you walk north
along the dike).  If you don't see it there, try another area that
a fellow birder steered me towards this afternoon.  To get to this
spot, walk east along the dike that parallels the road until you
are directly north of a red brick house with blue siding.  Look
directly north from this spot over the marsh and check an open,
low muddy area.  The Garganey was sleeping on a slightly elevated
spot on this muddy area.  Two Blue-winged teal were sleeping near
the Garganey.

I should mention that I spent several hours this morning looking
for the bird with no success, so patience may be called for. 

Darlene Friedman

From: "John Pogacnik"  
To: "Ohio Birds"  
Subject: Garganey Message 
Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 19:28:06 -0400

Bill Murray, one of the people that was there when the Garganey
was initially found asked me to pass this on.  It details the
finding of the bird and his frustration of trying to report the
bird.

John Pogacnik
____

About the Garganey -- this is a case where I was so sure that the
word would get out and that everyone interested would see the
postings about it that I didn't even email anyone personally.  As
for notifying anyone in Ohio, my efforts were met with frustration
as I'll detail below.

I wasn't on the dike yet when Dixie (surname?) called out,
"Wigeon!" followed by Larry Peavler shouting, "Garganey!"  I
arrived a few minutes later and got to see our Indiana Audubon
Society co-leader, Alan Bruner, run from the dike to his car to
get a digital camera.  Alan is one of Indiana's top birders.  I'd
never seen him run before, so I knew he'd seen something very
rare.  By the time I'd gotten to the spot on the middle dike where
the group was gathered, the Garganey had slipped into the cattails
and out of sight.  Dan Leach, our other co-leader, took some of
our group to the south dike to see if they could find a better
vantage point.  Eventually the bird slid back out into the open,
but it stayed close to cover at all times.  It was VERY wary and
stayed out of sight more often than we would have liked. It also
stayed about halfway across the impoundment from us, in heavy
vegetation.  A pair of Blue-winged Teal and a Mallard were nearby
for size comparison.  I couldn't be sure at that distance, but I
thought the Garganey looked slightly larger than the other teal
and smaller than the Mallard.

This bird defines a one-quick-look ID, don't you think?!

As soon as we had clinched the ID, we used Talkabouts to try
contacting any local birders on our channel but failed to raise
anyone.  I left the group to catch a ride to the nature center at
Crane Creek so I could notify the birding community.  How I wish
there were some standing procedure in place at the nature center
there for getting the word out!  The volunteers were very
friendly, providing me with Vic Fazio's phone number and even
calling Information trying to locate other people I remembered as
having served on the rare bird committee.  As it turned out, Vic
Fazio is in Oklahoma doing research on Black-capped Vireo, and we
couldn't find anyone else's phone number.  I'd seen Rob Harlan
earlier that day as well as the day before, but he wasn't around.
One of the nature center volunteers called Information on her cell
phone trying to finding his phone number but failed.  The best I
could do to disseminate information about the Garganey was to
write the sighting on the white board outside.

While at the center I also tried to find a PC with an Internet
connection so I could ascertain the provenance of the Garganey and
email as many birders as I could.  Unfortunately, no PC was
available.

It will be interesting to see what the rare bird committee does
with this. My observations were that the bird appeared healthy,
showed no sign of feather wear, and was very wary, all indications
of a truly wild bird.

All the best,
--Bill Murphy

Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 15:55:12 -0400 
From: Bill Whan  
To: "ohio-birds@envirolink.org"  
Subject: Garganey refound at Mallard Club, 25 May 

Joe Hammond just called me to let me know that he and a handful of
stalwarts remaining from among ~75 other birders just saw the
garganey in the usual spot at 340 pm, and that it had just melted
back into the weeds like Shoeless Joe Jackson. Good thing, because
Wes Biggs had flown up from Florida for the bird, and had stuck it
out with Joe & Co since 9 am this morning. Good news, even if you
missed it this time.

Bill Whan
Columbus

To: "OhioBirds" 
Subject: Garganey Photo Online 

Greetings,

The 6+ hour vigil at Mallard Club Marsh WA yesterday (5/25/02)
paid off and I was able to snag one not-real-good documentary
digiscoped image of the male garganey. The photo certainly shows
its propensity toward staying well hidden amongst the vegetation.
A big thank you to the eagle eyes of John Watts for finding this
bird yesterday. Enjoy!

http://www.jjhammond.com/kestrel/nikon/birds.htm

Good birding,

Joe Hammond
Columbus, OH