- Wednesday brought a brief trip to the Ellis Lake Wetlands on Union Centre Boulevard in West Chester, Ohio.


As an Information Technology Manager, I am required to travel to various company locations to go birding do computer work. This year I have been to Cleveland, OH; Hammond, IN; Nashville, TN; and Detroit, MI.

My most frequent road trip, though, is to Cincinnati, OH. To get there I drive straight down I-75 to exit 1F. The school I work at is right at the exit. Consisting of exclusively freeway driving, it would seem as though there would be little opportunity for birding along the way.

This is where the wonderful Ellis Lake Wetlands come to the rescue. Just one exit up from where I stop for gas, and about 8 minutes from the freeway sits this small, but never boring, oasis in an otherwise industrial area.



My first visit back in May provided excellent views of Great Egret, Greater Yellowlegs, Lesser Yellowlegs, and a pair of Red-Tailed Hawks. It looked so different then compared to now. The entire area had not yet begun to grow back from the previous fall's cuttings. The corn field on the left was just 3 inch leftovers and the tall grass in the center was barely visible. This made it much easier to see the birds around the water areas. This time, you had to really look for them.

I pulled into the access road and drove down to the cul-de-sac that doubles as the parking area (holds maybe 6 cars). Looking out the car windows I can see lots of Red-Winged Blackbirds and Great Egrets. I gather up my camera and binoculars and start scanning the area.

1 Great Egret, 2 Great Egrets, 3... 4... 5... 6... 7... 8... - wait, number 8 looks funny. It's got a black bill and it's smaller, and has black legs with yellow feet... Fire off a couple of photos and figure it out later.

And then I remembered - There was a different type of Egret reported at Armleder park back in May. Remembered seeing something about black legs and yellow feet. Sure enough, Kirk Westendorf reported a Snowy Egret matching that description. Before reporting it on eBird, I wanted to get confirmation. I snapped an iPhone pic of my LCD screen and uploaded it to Flickr.

Then I emailed the Ohio Bird Listserve and asked the members to look at it and ID, if possible. They unanimously responded with Snowy Egret!

I had made it to #200! To make it official, I submitted my eBird checklist. Snowy Egret showed up as "Rare" - nice! I put in my comments about where I saw it, clicked "submit", and silently congratulated myself on the accomplishment.

"The species is scarce in (southwest) Ohio as you probably know, and most unexpected this early. Post-breeding wanderings are almost annual but not before August."

It made the long journey to 200 much sweeter. To have located a fairly rare species and have it confirmed by the experts, AND have it as my 200th bird was very satisfying...

Now I have to find #201... :-)